Plastic... or I saw a disturbing picture yesterday

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

We were in a museum and looking at pictures of beautiful ocean life when we came to a picture of an albatross that had died of ingestion of pieces of plastic. The bird literally had about a pound of plastic in its guts. The plastic was on display. Cigarrete lighters, toys, and broken bits of this and that. It was heart wrenching.

 

Apparently all that junk was floating in the ocean and its mother scooped it up and fed it to the youngster. Sixty other dead ones were found with at least 7 ounces of plastic in each.

 

Now I'm not someone who tends to get sentimental over the death of animals. But this was beyond sentiment, it was disgust at what we have done.

 

I looked in my house today. I throw away so much plastic it is not funny. Everything comes wrapped in it or made of it, and it is not all recyclable. Some kind of plastic comes with almost every single food item I buy. Most of it ends up in the trash. What can one person do?

 

Just a rant.:tongue_smilie:

[LaxMom]

It's disturbing, isn't it? I have no problem with durable plastics - my laptop, for instance - but the plastics made and used specifically to be disposed in the nearest landfill are really becoming an issue.

 

Even at our natural foods buying club, when we split large bags of grains and whatnot, each share is weighed out into plastic bags, which cannot be recycled...

 

You may be able to find some inspiration here:

Life Less Plastic

 

 

A quote from my TP wrapper, to illustrate (italicized is my comment): "If every household in the US replaced just one roll of 1000 sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissue with 100% recycled ones, we could save:

 

 

• 469,000 trees
  
• 1.2 million cubic feet of landfill space, equal to 1,700 full garbage trucks (just from the packaging)
  
• 169 million gallons of water, a year's supply for 1,300 families of four (just from the plastic processing)"
  

 

If everyone became just slightly more mindful, imagine what that would turn into. Anything anyone does to be more mindful of using disposables helps. Anything. ;)

[Peek a Boo]

I agree that how waste is handled can be horrible. But I also know that most of that isn't the result of the plastic/ coins/ junk/etc, but how it was HANDLED.

 

i do think that evenone person can

 

1. yes, reduce the amount of plastic/ junk you consume, but as you saw, it doesn't take much to kill a critter.

 

2. find out the best organization that is working for this cause and SUPPORT them: send them money to lobby. volunteer to stuff envelopes or be support so the speakers can go do the speaking gig. If you CAN speak or research well, start offering that gift to them. Act.

 

3. call your representatives and make your case known. Repeatedly. take the pictures w/ you to a visit. email updates and stories. call and ask about any new legislation.

[Peek a Boo]

replaced just one roll of 1000 sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissue with 100% recycled ones,

 

...except that even the recycling process can be horrible for the environment.

 

pros and cons everywhere.

[Kelli in TN]

You may be able to find some inspiration here:

Life Less Plastic

 

 

)

 

Thanks for the link, I am doing some of those things, but I could certainly do more.

[happygrrl]

I just watched the documentary "Manufactured Landscapes". It is about a photographer who chronicles changes in the landscape to to manufacturing and shipping. I like it because he does not get very political, rather he lets his photography do the talking (much more shocking IMO).

 

Highly recommended!

[Peek a Boo]

I get that it's not good to throw all of this plastic into a landfill. What I don't get is how the heck it got into the OCEAN! I probably sound very stupid but around here we don't just dump trash into the sea, and we clean up our beaches and even the near by city has very little litter ever. How are the animals getting to it? Maybe if you speak slowly I will understand. :001_huh:

 

as noted, it doesn't take that much plastic or junk to kill a critter. I'm sure we have plenty of individuals /groups w/ more money than empathy tossing stuff off their own boats. Not to mention the crap that is tossed by boats from other countries.

[Lovedtodeath]

I get that it's not good to throw all of this plastic into a landfill. What I don't get is how the heck it got into the OCEAN! I probably sound very stupid but around here we don't just dump trash into the sea, and we clean up our beaches and even the near by city has very little litter ever. How are the animals getting to it? Maybe if you speak slowly I will understand. :001_huh:

:iagree::001_huh:

[LaxMom]

...except that even the recycling process can be horrible for the environment.

 

pros and cons everywhere.

 

Yup, absolutely. But for the deforestation, though, I'm pretty sure the landfill and water usage speaks directly to the production of the plastic packaging, not to the production of the TP itself. And people get a little funny when I suggest using cloth you launder yourself. ;)

 

as noted, it doesn't take that much plastic or junk to kill a critter. I'm sure we have plenty of individuals /groups w/ more money than empathy tossing stuff off their own boats. Not to mention the crap that is tossed by boats from other countries.

And it also blows, as evidenced by the plastic bags I often find stuck in the tops of the trees in my yard. Not only is the problem the conscious improper disposal of waste, but its tendency to blow - out of garbage cans, out of trucks, off barges, off heaps in landfills, birds pick up the bits and drop them elsewhere...

 

It's not about a single solution. Each taking personal responsibility in how much purely disposable product we consume does cut down on some of that, though. It's a simple question to ask ourselves: Is this really necessary? And, what can I use in its place that isn't disposable?

[bettyandbob]

A lot of cities don't have space in landfills anymore. The trash gets shipped away to another place that will take it. Some municipalities have their trash trucked to another state. If the city is near a coast the trash will likely end up on a barge. Does anyone recall the barge that left NY or NJ and was floating up and down the east coast for a while because the place that originally said it would take it would not. It was 10 or 15 years ago. It was just a huge open barge of trash. I'm sure some of it blew off in the ocean. I'm sure trash regularly blows off these trash barges into the ocean.

[hillfarm]

Another big problem is that many ships at sea just dump their trash overboard. Not a big deal until you thing about all those enormous cruise ships and all that trash...

 

I used to work as a marine biologist and it was not at all uncommon to find plastics in the stomachs and intestines of the dead dolphins, whales, and manatees we studied when they washed up on the beaches.

 

Very sad indeed. It is time for people to wake up and realize that our planet is not infinite. There is an end to the resources (and space available).

[Jumping In Puddles]

Altered Oceans by the LA Times. Unforgettable.

 

MIDWAY ATOLL -- The albatross chick jumped to its feet, eyes alert and focused. At 5 months, it stood 18 inches tall and was fully feathered except for the fuzz that fringed its head.

 

All attitude, the chick straightened up and clacked its beak at a visitor, then rocked back and dangled webbed feet in the air to cool them in the afternoon breeze.

 

The next afternoon, the chick ignored passersby. The bird was flopped on its belly, its legs splayed awkwardly. Its wings drooped in the hot sun. A few hours later, the chick was dead.

 

John Klavitter, a wildlife biologist, turned the bird over and cut it open with a knife. Probing its innards with a gloved hand, he pulled out a yellowish sac — its stomach.

 

Out tumbled a collection of red, blue and orange bottle caps, a black spray nozzle, part of a green comb, a white golf tee and a clump of tiny dark squid beaks ensnared in a tangle of fishing line.

 

"This is pretty typical," said Klavitter, who is stationed at the atoll for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We often find cigarette lighters, bucket handles, toothbrushes, syringes, toy soldiers — anything made out of plastic."...

[tricia]

How pathetically sad.

[Lovedtodeath]

DH wants to know when/if they will learn to stop eating it, and why they would do so in the first place.

[Peek a Boo]

DH wants to know when/if they will learn to stop eating it, and why they would do so in the first place.

 

No, they won't learn to stop eating it, just like dogs don't "learn" to not drink antifreeze or eat chocolate. You could possibly train one animal at a time to not eat *specific* things, but that's no guarantee of safety.

 

I'm guessing that since many of these critters regularly consume either bugs or smaller sea creatures, these interesting-looking bits of plastic resemble what they might normally eat. Or maybe the stuff smells/feels like some yummy tidbit ;) I'm not sure what their eyesight is like --some animals can't see colors very well.

[sgilli3]

Here is another step in the right direction.

 

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/800466/countdown-to-sa-plastic-shopping-bag-ban

[Karen sn]

We were in a museum and looking at pictures of beautiful ocean life when we came to a picture of an albatross that had died of ingestion of pieces of plastic. The bird literally had about a pound of plastic in its guts. The plastic was on display. Cigarrete lighters, toys, and broken bits of this and that. It was heart wrenching.

 

Apparently all that junk was floating in the ocean and its mother scooped it up and fed it to the youngster. Sixty other dead ones were found with at least 7 ounces of plastic in each.

 

Now I'm not someone who tends to get sentimental over the death of animals. But this was beyond sentiment, it was disgust at what we have done.

 

I looked in my house today. I throw away so much plastic it is not funny. Everything comes wrapped in it or made of it, and it is not all recyclable. Some kind of plastic comes with almost every single food item I buy. Most of it ends up in the trash. What can one person do?

 

Just a rant.:tongue_smilie:

 

I just saw a documentary on a sperm whale who was only 2yo and dead on a beach. So much plastic in her stomach she starved. Clorox bottle, green hard plastic ball, and other trash in her stomach killed her.

 

I am now making changes in small ways.

Powder detergent in paper over liquid in plastic.

I have reusable grocery bags that are large and wonderful - from Joann's Fabric.

 

I think of that whale and her mother and the rest of their family when I shop.

[Karen sn]

DH wants to know when/if they will learn to stop eating it, and why they would do so in the first place.

 

The deer in the Grand Canyon ate plastic bags and were taught by their mothers to do so. So park rangers killed all the deer and brought new ones in who would not have any knowledge of this practice. They tell that story just before they ask you to take care of all your trash. The chipmunks on the trail to the bottom of the canyon come running when they hear plastic wrapers being opened.

 

Whales are eating plastic bottles and dying because the plastic is so abundant that it gets accidentally swallowed while they are eating their food.

 

Turtles eat balloons and other plastic because it looks like jelly fish and whatever else they eat.

 

I just wonder when/if the humans will learn anything!

[Jumping In Puddles]

DH wants to know when/if they will learn to stop eating it, and why they would do so in the first place.

 

If you send him to the links above from the LA Times, will he read it? Link

 

Albatross fly hundreds of miles in their search for food for their young. Their flight paths from Midway often take them over what is perhaps the world's largest dump: a slowly rotating mass of trash-laden water about twice the size of Texas.

 

This is known as the Eastern Garbage Patch, part of a system of currents called the North Pacific subtropical gyre. Located halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii, the garbage patch is an area of slack winds and sluggish currents where flotsam collects from around the Pacific, much like foam piling up in the calm center of a hot tub.

[Lovedtodeath]

Wow! Can we not get some nets out there and clean it up? I know... that is only a band-aid.

 

I think his comment about animals learning not to eat harmful objects was a jab at survival of the fittest actually. :o

[Jumping In Puddles]

 

I think his comment about animals learning not to eat harmful objects was a jab at survival of the fittest actually. :o

 

Over the course of millions of years, sea creatures and birds may evolve to digest plastic, avoid it or maybe become extinct. We won't know but, dang, "a slowly rotating mass of trash-laden water about twice the size of Texas." I feel like we have at least a little responsibility to use less plastic.

 

FWIW, I think that some plastics are useful and make the world a better place (for example in surgical applications, medical tubing) but the crap that my kids get after a visit to the dentist and all the other useless "stuff" that is ending up in the oceans? No thank you! It is the sheer abundance of plastic that is the problem.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

Wow! Can we not get some nets out there and clean it up? I know... that is only a band-aid.

 

I think his comment about animals learning not to eat harmful objects was a jab at survival of the fittest actually. :o

 

 

I'm thinking survival of the fittest would be a natural response to natural phenomenon, plastic is not natural by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Trolling for garbage in that area sounds like a good idea to me. Maybe a ongoing clean up operation would do some good and bring the problem to more people's attention.

[Peek a Boo]

Trolling for garbage in that area sounds like a good idea to me. Maybe a ongoing clean up operation would do some good and bring the problem to more people's attention.

 

I like this idea from a blog [is it a moira from here??]:

 

moira Says:

December 7, 2008 at 6:00 am

 

Maybe some enterprising supertanker owner could introduce eco-trawling holidays criss-crossing the area. The collected debri could be compacted into dense masses and safely sunk or utilised in the construction industry. Smaller bits could be formed into paperweight mementos and conversation pieces for the passengers…they could become highly prized “objects d’artâ€!

 

On the other hand, what are the emissions like for a super tanker?:confused:

methinks it would still be a bigger deal to pickup the plastic.....

[Jumping In Puddles]

On the other hand, what are the emissions like for a super tanker?:confused:

methinks it would still be a bigger deal to pickup the plastic.....

 

I think you are right. :(

 

The only thing I think can be done is to convince people to not buy so much stuff! Maybe it won't make it better but at least it won't get worse.