And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use. And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, and Man shook his head and cried: “Look at this Godawful mess.” ~Art Buchwald, 1970

A “floating landfill, made up of plastic trash is swirling in a convergence zone about 1,000 miles west of California and 1,000 miles north of the Hawaiian Islands.” The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is said to be twice the size of Texas. The sun’s UV rays turn the pastic brittle, much like they would crack the vinyl on a car roof. They break it down into small pieces and, in some cases, into particles as fine as dust, which are ingested by marine fauna. Toxicity from such plastic pollutants seeps into the ocean water and thus into our food chain.

GreenLandOceanBlue is in the process of fundraising for a film titled, Plastic Pacific, in which filmmakers Mike Prickett and Steve Lawrence will join Captain Charles Moore (who discovered the Garbage Patch 12 years ago) and a team of world-renowned scientists, journalists, and creative artists on a voyage to explore this emerging debacle and highlight the need for waste management worldwide.

For more information about Plastic Pacific, please continue to our blog. For general information about the GPGP, visit http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org.

PHOTO CREDIT