Garbage, garbage everywhere.......

Hugh Freaking Dillon

I just came across an article on a topic I couldn't believe I had never heard of before: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. For those that are ignorant of this phenomenon like I was, here's the skinny:

Much of our waste today is comprised of plastics that do not biodegrade. This waste sometimes accumulates into spiraling seas of debris. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest one, and get this: it's is estimated to be either the same size, or double the size of Texas. THE STATE OF TEXAS. 3.5 million tonnes of trash. And constantly growing.

Plastic to sea-life ratios are a disgusting 6:1. Much of these mammals are dying with bellies full of plastic, and the fish are becoming poisoned with toxins to the point where soon they will no longer be safe to eat.

There is currently no effort underway to clean up this mess. This is unbelievable. If you wish to learn more, go to http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/ (where all the above information is paraphrased from). I first learned of this from a blog post on http://www.matthewgood.org. If you don't know Matt Good, he is a very left-leaning liberal activist, and very popular Canadian musician.

This continues to baffle me, how things like this can go utterly unnoticed, yet the top industrialized nations, those arguably in the best position to address and solve such issues, spend billions and billions of dollars on wall street and killing innocent citizens in foreign lands, to name but two.

Where are we going?

Pepe Silvia

thanks for posting that, that's horrible how little regard we have for the planet and other forms of life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZbsMlr9WRI

Jeanwah

Although I have seen one or two stories on the garbage patch on television, it's typically ignored by the mainstream media. Not sure why. Could possibly be because if we aired it and had it well known about, our gov't may have to take responsibility for it. And don't we know that the U.S. gov't doesn't want that. That would mean cleanup costs as well as admitting the environment is a much larger issue, as well as our mass consumption habits, than the mainstream media portays it to be.

Sludge Factory

Jeanwah wrote:

Although I have seen one or two stories on the garbage patch on television, it's typically ignored by the mainstream media. Not sure why. Could possibly be because if we aired it and had it well known about, our gov't may have to take responsibility for it. And don't we know that the U.S. gov't doesn't want that. That would mean cleanup costs as well as admitting the environment is a much larger issue, as well as our mass consumption habits, than the mainstream media portays it to be.

Yeah, I don't hear too much about it either...though I guess I did just read an article on it in the Rolling Stone. Don't know if that is considered mainstream media or not...I just know lots of people hate it.

DriftingByTheStorm

Jeanwah wrote:

Although I have seen one or two stories on the garbage patch on television, it's typically ignored by the mainstream media. Not sure why. Could possibly be because if we aired it and had it well known about, our gov't may have to take responsibility for it. And don't we know that the U.S. gov't doesn't want that. That would mean cleanup costs as well as admitting the environment is a much larger issue, as well as our mass consumption habits, than the mainstream media portays it to be.

On the topic of mainstream coverage:
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Good Morning America

And before we went saying that the US Government may have to claim responsibility, we might want to look at who shares the "other" coast in this whole mess ... duh duh duh (sinister) ... CHINA!

I wonder who was responsible for most of that trash, the hippie pseudo-communist coasties of cali, oregon, and washington, or the mao bag carrying red chinese?

i'm just sayin'.


This leads me to two other points.

1. Stuff like this is a glaring example of what a fucking farce carbon credits and "global climate change" (ie. "global warming" didn't pan out like we thought, just like nothing in the shitball Club of Rome's "The Limits to Growth" paned out 30 years ago) are, and how bad they mock the human condition. Humanity has put visceral but reversible harm upon the planet. If only politicians could be used to affect THIS kind of CHANGE, rather than scamming us out of money we don't have to help them bail their cronies ways out of scams already gone wrong. Some things take time to reverse, but dedicating a couple mega trawlers through one of the oh-so-en-vogue international regulatory agencies towards dredging this stuff out with some sort of new-aged super-fine, super-tough net would be a good start. I just tried to look up commercial trawler pay loads and got 80 tonnes for a just over hobby sized boat. I'm guessing our navy could whip up something that could EASILY hold 1,000 tonnes. Why thats only 6,000 full boat loads! Wonder how long it takes to dredge 1,000 tons, any how? Limiting factor?

2. If plastics are THIS problematic, and this double-the-size-of-Texas pile is going to destabilize into ocean water, causing god knows what harm, shouldn't we get one of the aforementioned international regulatory agencies to ban non-organic\non-degradable plastics for good? Wouldn't that be a fun roll out?

hmm.

polaris_x

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

This leads me to two other points.

1. Stuff like this is a glaring example of what a fucking farce carbon credits and "global climate change" (ie. "global warming" didn't pan out like we thought, just like nothing in the shitball Club of Rome's "The Limits to Growth" paned out 30 years ago) are, and how bad they mock the human condition.

what part of climate change isn't panning out? ... they're evacuating in the south pacific because the islands they lived on for hundreds of years is now under water ...

although i'm in line with the rest of your post

haffajappa

i love matt good. wish i was going to the show here in a bit :(

anyways, i was talking about this the other day, thanks for posting!

Heatherj43

Its pretty pathetic when we are no longer polluting lakes, but entire oceans?? Its a scary thought of where all the trash will go after the oceans are full.

g under p

Heatherj43 wrote:

Its pretty pathetic when we are no longer polluting lakes, but entire oceans?? Its a scary thought of where all the trash will go after the oceans are full.

It amazed me last year I went on my first cruise in the Western Caribbean. I went for a midnight walk when our cruise ship came across a patch or slick of garbage on our way to Cozumel, Mexico. I couldn't believe we could run through trash way out in the seas of the Caribbean.

Soon we won't have anywhere to put this planet's trash. I do know we don't need to toss garbage/trash from car windows littering the highways and parkways around here in the Nation's capital DC. It gets hideous till it gets cleaned up monthly. :oops: :shock:

Peace

Hugh Freaking Dillon

I littered occasionally when I was an ignorant younger teen, but I NEVER do now, and haven't in at least two decades. it just blows me away the trash people leave in their wake. it's disgusting.

I even used to feel guilty throwing down a cig butt when I was a smoker. One thing I hate about this climate.......spring brings melted snow, and water-logged cig butts all over town. it's gross.

Jeanwah

Johnny Sitar wrote:

I even used to feel guilty throwing down a cig butt when I was a smoker. One thing I hate about this climate.......spring brings melted snow, and water-logged cig butts all over town. it's gross.

I wish people could get fined for dropping their butts on the ground. So disgusting and they don't break down.

tybird

More mainstream media coverage....the current Rolling Stone magazine has an article concerning the patch...it's the issue with Shakira on the cover.

It's absolutely amazing how our garbage makes its way across the globe....solids seem to find their way into the middle of the oceans while mercury and PCBs seem to creep their way to the Arctic.

Jeanwah

Did you know that when you're on a coastal beach, that the something like 70% of the sand isn't really sand? It's ground up plastic, ground into specks so small they look like sand. I read this from an excerpt from a book called The World Without Us. It was specifically about how much plastic is used in the world every day, and that there is so much garbage and plastic used and discarded that it could wrap around the globe 5 times.