Is Our Legacy One Of Plastic?

An editorial from the New York Times:

August 27, 2009
Editorial

Our Plastic Legacy Afloat

Until recently, the earth had seven continents. To that number, humans have added an eighth ­ an amorphous, floating mass of waste plastic trapped in a gyre of currents in the north Pacific, between Hawaii and Japan. Researchers have estimated that this garbage patch may contain as much as 100 million tons of plastic debris and is perhaps twice the size of Texas, if not larger.

Across the world’s oceans there are still many more millions of tons of floating plastic, most of it originating from land, not ships. All of this solid waste is bad news. It traps as many as a million seabirds every year, as well as some 100,000 marine mammals.

Now comes what could be more bad news. A new study, announced at a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society, suggests that plastics in seawater break down faster than expected. As they do, they apparently release contaminants, including potentially harmful styrene compounds not normally found in nature. This was not merely a laboratory finding. The author of the study, Katsuhiko Saido, a scientist at Nihon University in Japan, found the same chemical compounds in seawater samples collected near Malaysia, the Pacific Northwest, and in the northern Pacific.

The effects of these broken-down plastics on marine organisms is as yet unknown, and they will be harder to measure than the damage that plastic refuse does to sea-life. But adding to the contaminant load of the oceans cannot be a good thing.

What we are seeing here is yet another of the large-scale, potentially tragic, uncontrolled experiments that humans have conducted on their environment without intending to. And though we cannot do much about the millions of tons that have already been sent to sea, we can at least begin to ask ourselves, when we get ready to pitch a plastic container, where is this likely to end up?

Check out my articles on this issue:

The Great Pacific or Eastern Garbage Patch

Environmental Dangers of Plastic Bags

Bottled Water Versus Tap Water, Which is Better

Throw-Away Society - Why is our Trash so Bad?

In 2006 I read an article that made a profound impression on me,called Plague of Plastics Chokes our Seas. It made me aware of the problem of garbage in our seas, the prevalence of it, and the effect it is having on marine ecosystems and wildlife. The world's largest garbage dump is located in the Pacific Ocean - the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Here are some videos about it:









Two very easy things you can do to alleviate the problem are:

1) Use non-disposable refillable water bottles

2) Use reusable shopping bags instead of disposable plastic bags