That's a quote from that SF man who's been saving all his garbage for a year. I really like it. I’ve been putting off writing about this article on MSN because (a) it’s 6 webpages long, and (b) I can’t figure out why it’s been relegated to the "Lifestyle: Men" section. Anyways the article discusses how a garbage mass twice the size of Texas is floating in a vortex in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Basically the gyre is where air and water currents flow in a circle, collecting everything into the relatively still center of the vortex. (Interesting fact: this occurs in the “horse latitudes,” so-called because winds are so weak that back in the day ships would toss their horses overboard to lighten the load.) 
(yellow dots = garbage)
This article discusses how discarded plastic is working its way into our bodies and causing obesity, infertility/reproductive problems, diabetes, cancer, memory loss, and liver and thyroid problems. Basically, every speck of plastic ever made still exists because instead of biodegrading, plastic photodegrades into smaller and smaller pieces, which then works its way into and up the food chain. That’s on top of the plastics exposure we get through the containers we eat/drink out of, through the carpet (and “new car”) fumes we inhale, or through the water we drink.
Yeah, it’s pretty scary. On page 5 there’s a discussion of something I’ve never heard of before- the problem of the lax handling of nurdles, the pellet-form of plastic before it’s melted and molded into something more useful. One study estimates that escaped nurdles account for 10% of ocean plastic debris.
Another fun anecdote about ocean debris— occasionally garbage will spin out of the gyre and make its way to shore. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer has been studying the movement of ocean currents using data from cargo spills, relying heavily on the great Nike spill of 1990 (when about 80,000 pairs fell off the Hansa Carrier and started washing ashore 6 months later) and another spill in 1992 of tens of thousands of bathtub toys-- blue turtles, yellow ducks, red beavers and green frogs. Anyways, skim the article-- it's long but worth it.
Follow-up: Here's something you don't read everyday-- China at the forefront of an environmental solution. Apparently come June, stores in China will no longer be allowed to give away plastic bags for free and must start charging for them. (Link)
3 comments:
Eric Carle wrote a children's book, Ten Little Rubber Ducks, about the toy spill. It comes with a built in battery so the duckling at the end can say "squeek-ER squeek-ER."
I also recently heard about some more good news from China, which is that they are actually beginning to adopt some of the EU's standards for toys and cosmetics- standards that are much more stringent than the U.S's. (Basically, this paragraph is a vast paraphrase of Terri Gross's interview with Mark Schapiro, author of Exposed).
Thanks for this post!
Go China!?
You know, it occurs to me this plastic bag "ban" goes into effect just in time for the Olympics in Beijing, which makes me wonder if it's just a ploy to extract more money from tourists buying stuff.
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