On Nightline's March 28th broadcast, I saw a story on the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch", which is the largest
garbage dump in the world...in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The name is deceptive---there's actually two garbage patches. The Eastern Garbage Patch exists between California and Hawaii and is twice the size of Texas (And they said that it would be impossible to build a bridge from the mainland U.S. to Hawaii--- fools!). The Western Garbage Patch exists east of Japan and west of Hawaii.
It is no surprise that the majority of the waste in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is plastic. Plastic accounts for 90 percent of the garbage in the ocean, and according to the UN Environmental Program, one square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. Discarded plastic products are consumed by various aquatic creatures and by waterfowl, causing the untimely death of many an animal. Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, states that plastic does break down into smaller pieces, sometimes forming a kind of "sand" on many beaches. What especially concerns Moore is that "The bigger chips turn to smaller chips...And we
eventually get dust. Our concern is that this dust then goes to the
molecular level and invades the entire food web in the ocean." Now that is a prospect that is too frightening to consider!
Hopefully raising people's awareness of such atrocities as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will begin to change the mindsets of the many people around the world who are unmindful of their "throwaway existence" and unbridled consumerism. We can do with less, we can repurpose many plastic products in ingenious ways, and yes, we can certainly recycle. It appears that this garbage dump will never be cleaned up, so let's try our best to not add to it.
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