Drowning in plastic

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now twice the size of France. I've posted previously on this floating monument to humanity's total disregard for the planet. Located in the Pacific Ocean, the garbage patch is an accumulation of debris, that is held together by ocean currents. It is a large, floating mass, about 10 metres deep, of just garbage. Today, that garbage is almost 90% plastic. While the garbage patch must have existed for a long time, it is only in recent history that its composition changed from biodegradable material to mostly plastic. Estimates suggest that the navies and commercial shipping fleets of the world dump about 639,000 plastic containers overboard each day -- yet, surprisingly, 80% of the garbage patch doesn't come boats, but originates from land.

The wind blows plastic rubbish out of littered streets and landfills, and lorries and trains on their way to landfills. It gets into rivers, streams and storm drains and then rides the tides and currents out to sea. Litter dropped by people at the beach is also a major source.

So what if the world's largest landfill is the Pacific Ocean? How about the deaths of a million seabirds and one hundred thousand marine mammals and turtles, annually? Most of these animals die from entanglement -- caught in discarded fishing nets and lines -- then, there is asphyxiation and constipation. The plastic debris is mistaken for food and is eaten. Some get lodged in the animals throats, choking them, while others block their digestive system -- death by constipation.

So who cares if some animals die? While plastic isn't biodegradable, it does break down into smaller and smaller pieces -- to the size of grains of sand. Plastic has a habit of attracting and accumulating chemical poisons. At the bottom of the marine food chain, zooplankton ingest these ... and eventually, the poison makes it into our own bodies. Who cares? We should. We're killing ourselves slowly.