So what are WE to do about THIS?

"Way out in the Pacific Ocean, in an area once known as the doldrums, an enormous, accidental monument to modern society has formed. Invisible to satellites, poorly understood by scientists and perhaps twice the size of France, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a solid mass... but a kind of marine soup whose main ingredient is floating PLASTIC debris."

*http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/5208645/Drowning-in-plastic-The-Great-Pacific-Garbage-Patch-is-twice-the-size-of-France.html

The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan

By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent, and Daniel Howden

Tuesday, 5 February 2008

INDEPENDENT GRAPHICS

A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.

The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."

*http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html

Someone who CARES



So what can YOU and I do?
So much of our lives are entrenched in plastic today that it seems to me that you can't run away from it! I read that some scientists say that due to the lack of plastic disintegration that we will leave a plastic layer (!!!) in our planets evolutionary footprint and scientists are now also discovering that plastic in minuscule amounts has NOW entered our food chain via the fish in our seas... If the plastic doesn't kill our sea creatures, it will kill us folks, via the toxins that these sea soups are absorbing due to rising sea temperatures, and THAT is due to global warming.

Yes it seems to me that our natural planetary cycles has a natural justice, with no malice, and no judgment on Mother Natures behalf, these simple natural cycles will ultimately tell the story of us...

and i suggest is the price that we now pay...

i think upon these things after watching a program on the telly about the natural cycles of the American Salmon and how they swim from the sea into the fresh water systems and how so many animals rely on them along the way as sustenance... It is such a beautiful and delicate system where every action has a reaction and every creature plays it's part, and it made me sad to think how outside of this we humans are as a species... So out of tune...



So what do WE do? My neighborhood has a recycling bin system, and we compost, but the problem is still huge... Can we reuse in bigger ways? How do we STOP the need for plastics? i for one would like my drinks back into glass and cardboard, as i personally believe that the toxins from plastic are contributing to cancer ...There is some evidence to support this now- Puts a whole new perspective on the fact that WE are the products, or the 1st of the 'plastic generation' and it is OUR generation that suffers the highest ever cancer figures! Hmmmm...
We use cloth bags at the supermarket, but even our fruits and vegies are being packaged in plastic now, have you noticed that! Geez! Even our undies have some plastics in them! (My eldest daughter will only buy underwear from 'Cotton On' for this reason)...

Look i don't mean to do a depressing post today but do you know what, i think that we have run out of time now and we can't just surmise anymore, it's the age of action and we need to do something now! ... So i'm sitting here with a plastic bottle by my computer screen and i'm looking at it like it's the devil and i'm wracking my brain to give me solutions...

i can stop buying future plastics but what do "i" do with the plastic that is already here on the planet with no where to go?

i'll let you know



(Ps) It was one scientists suggestion that we need to look at a microbe that can break down plastic harmlessly ...and to me THAT is a SOLUTION that i would be willing to throw my taxes at World Leaders! ...What do YOU think?

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