Plastic trash in ocean eaten by animals

So this is sort of disturbing. This popped up in one of the environmental health newsletters I'm subscribed to.

http://news.sciencemag.org/environment/ ... ic-missing

There's a lot of plastic pollution out in the oceans, the sources ranging from boats (especially cruise boats that literally toss their plastic trash overboard), to discharge from land to beach litter. There's a lot of plastic out there in the ocean, and a recent experiment shows that a lot of it is missing. It may have been broken up my sun exposure or sunk to the bottom, but it's likely it's being eaten by marine fish and other animals.

One of my professors is a marine biologist. He travels for his research a lot, and during the class I took with him this past spring, he showed the class pictures of dead turtles and marine birds, and the autopsies taken of them. Their digestive systems can become literally clogged by plastic waste, and it kills them. Bottle caps, pieces of plastic bottles, plastic bags, even small toys…you name it. Sea turtles are particularly prone, as some species eat sea jellies. To a turtle, a floating plastic bag is indistinguishable from a small jelly.

This makes me so upset... Reminds me of the so called "plastic continent", larger than France, scary as hell. I keep hoping that someday, some wise guy will figure out a way to make money by recycling all that waste, making the endeavor lucrative therefore: possible. When he becomes twice as rich as Bill Gates, I'll still be the first to sing his praise.

The Pacific Garbage Patch has turned so notorious Gojira wrote a song about it. Played it live when I saw them in May, even. Though, Aero, given what you said in the other thread about music, approach Gojira with caution, not entirely sure they'd be to your taste.



Someone in my program even did a thesis on the ocean currents that cause these things to be formed, using buoys equipped with GPS. It is kind of sad that it feels like to solve this problem, first someone has to find a way to make money from it. THEN we'll solve it. Never mind it's not so good for the health of the ocean, which humans rely on for food and a whole ton of other things.

Precisely why it makes me upset. If it's not lucrative, it won't happen. And when it paves the way to our doom, someone will make money out of the fear it creates. Once a few generations, a selfless genius arises. Let's hope we're soon due for one.

Admittedly, I think we're paving the way to our doom in ways besides this, some of those even worse, and all those have ramifications not just for us for other forms of life, including the ocean. And right now, we're not making much progress on pulling the 'stop' lever on that particular paver. I could go on for a LOOOOONG time on that, but for now, I'll have to restrain myself...

This is an interesting article WB, and it is very sad and scary about what may be happening to all that missing waste, and that is a lot of it missing too. I know the waste comes from various sources, etc., but one can only hope that after reading something like this (if not before reading it) that people will open their minds and their hearts and do their part whatever it may be to help cut down on some of this waste winding up in the seas, etc. That may only solve part of the problem but atleast it might be a beginning of sorts. Makes me sad to think that fish or other animals may have to suffer because of this.

The best thing you can do is recycle as much of your plastic waste as you can. Most municipalities make their local recycling policy available online, and list what can and can't be recycled. If you visit the beach or anywhere else near the ocean, don't just toss your trash wherever, put it in the proper trash bins. Any beach meant for visitors should have trash cans or places to put recyclables.

And rings for soda cans and bottles? Always, ALWAYS cut those up. You simply do not know where your trash may ultimately end up, and animals (not just marine animals!) can get stuck in uncut rings, which can kill and/or harm them.

Unfortunately today, we went and visited Castle Island near Boston Harbor. I saw a white thing floating out in the ocean. I thought it was a seagull of some kind, but when I put my binoculars up to my eyes it turned out to be a plastic milk bottle.

I saw an article today with an interesting new way that might help get rid of some of this trash from the ocean in the form of a solar powered water wheel:

http://news.msn.com/science-technology/ ... nt-wheel-1

See, that's awesome. Some good news. There's potential.