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According to worldcentric.org, 73 billion styrofoam and plastic cups and plates were put in the trash in 2003 in the USA alone. World Centric provides high quality compostable food service disposables and food packaging products for use in schools, corporate cafeterias, restaurants, hospitals, and homes. They use renewable resources like corn and discarded sugar cane and wheat straw fiber to make sustainable alternatives to plastics and styrofoam.
You can order a “generic sample pack for $7.50 plus shipping and handling at
worldcentric.org.
From a slideshow about plastic bags: www.poconorecord.com.
The 5 Gyres Project is the first comprehensive study of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. Beginning January 18, 2010, the project will travel thousands of miles across the North and South Atlantic oceans, collecting ocean samples to study plastic accumulation, as well as examining fish for possible plastic ingestion and toxins in their tissues. These expeditions will help further our understanding of the impact of plastic waste on the world’s oceans. Visit http://5gyres.org/ for more information (the site includes a What’s Happening Now blog).
Artist Dianna Cohen uses plastic as her primary medium. She’s also a co-founder of Plastic Pollution Coalition, an organization whose mission is “to create a global community and ignite a social movement that will eliminate the toxic impacts of plastic pollution worldwide.
You can visit Dianna’s online gallery at diannacohen.com. Plastic Pollution Coalition lives here.
originally uploaded by estherase
If you despise one-use plastic bags as much as we do, here’s some news that’s totally, like, nano-tubular. A chemist has created an “upcycling” method of turning the disposable bags into carbon nanotubes. Nanotubes technology is pretty new, but Stanford University researchers recently coated copier paper in ink made of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires to create bendable, highly conductive storage devices. Nanotubes could also become self-repair tools for electronic circuits in our smart phones and laptops. Here’s the scoop.
Newsstand copies of the November issue of Creative Review are wrapped in a revolutionary new bag that dissolves in hot water.
CR is the first magazine to use “Harmless Dissolve,” a new packaging material created by British firm, Cyberpac.
For those who missed the blog over the Thanksgiving holiday, we’re extending Friday’s Focus and for those who didn’t, we’re adding three new posts. In short, the Green Ad Festival continues:
photo: Vince Alongi
If you were walking down the street and you saw a plastic bag lightly tumbling in the breeze, would you stop to pick it up?
photo: Bobbytee.
If you’d been with us aboard the Baylis, you would without question.
Welcome to the Derick M Baylis, a 65-foot auxiliary-powered sailing research vessel, a Prius at sea.
Chartered by Sealife Conservation, its mission is to inspire conservation of the Oceans by fostering awareness of the marine environment through research and education. On board, a mixture of open minds: a fifth grader and an ocean activist, college students and college grads, dads and daughters. The most obvious commonality is the desire to experience and learn.
Would you step out of your way to pick up that Styrofoam cup in the park?
A day aboard the Baylis would provide you with more than one reason to do it.
The Baylis has just left its slip and nets are manned on both the port and starboard sides. A candy wrapper is the first catch of the day, small, but certainly there’s not a thought of throwing it back. A simple standard has been set: if you see it, call it out, and it will get hauled in. During the trip to the sea, other debris is collected. The experience is underscored by living sea lions basking on a buoy, pelicans flying overhead, and twenty or so dolphin close enough that you can
hear them breathing and slapping the water. A drifting patch of kelp is hoisted on board and the passengers comb through the leaves looking for life’s beginning stages taking refuge in the safe haven. Tiny crabs and other little creatures are placed in beakers so they can be studied.
A torrent of plastic and other trash is impacting their lives, so while the ocean is where most of earth’s life begins, it seems to be our least-respected resource.
If you were strolling on the beach, would you salvage that plastic cup half buried in the sand?
photo: Alan.Slmak
If you knew the crew of the Baylis, absolutely, you would.
The Billabong seaplane rendezvous with the Baylis off the SoCal coast.
On board are three incredible, big-wave riders. Mike Parsons, Grant “Twiggy” Baker and Greg Long don’t look like the hell men they really are as they board the sailboat from a dinghy, calm and clearly intrigued. Each of them has surfed the largest waves in the world with that same studied character.
They understand the ocean and it’s contents. Around the globe, they have seen pristine beaches turn into dumps and witnessed a bounty of plastic bags and bottles mixed with syringes. They watch as the Baylis nets its own collection of discarded objects, using GPS to note the location.
Would you stop a boat to pick up a floating water bottle?
At this point you know the answer is yes. A manned net on the starboard side misses a plastic bottle and suddenly the boat is turning around to gather it – a 65-foot boat on a turnabout for a single water bottle. There are no complaints, only interest in the brand and where it is from. The 180-degree turn for the bobbing plastic makes a point – for if we can stop trash like this from ever leaving the land, it will never find its way to the ocean’s garbage dumps.
That plastic bag, tumbling in the breeze?
Are you going to pick it up?
There was a point in my life when I would have answered, “no.” Or perhaps I wouldn’t have answered the question at all. Today I find myself stuffing plastic bags in my wetsuit sleeve while surfing. There are funny looks from the others in the line -up until I explain that, to a turtle, a plastic bag looks just like a jellyfish. Suddenly, they understand.
Back aboard the Baylis: A chunk of Styrofoam is netted (the little foam balls that break-off are easily mistaken for food by fish and sea birds). A silver Mylar happy birthday balloon is scooped off the surface to a chorus of hilarious, helium-inspired cheers. Things change. I’ve changed. Anything is possible.
Aloha,
Steve Lawrence, greenlandoceanblue
**All unattributed photos by Steve & Madison
A town in New South Wales, Australia, may be the first in the world to ban bottled water from store shelves. Just two hours drive south of Sydney, the village of Bundanoon voted for the ban in July. John Dee, a spokesman for the campaign that inspired the decision, says that the 2000-person town demonstrates at the local level how “we can sometimes do things that can surprise ourselves, in terms of our ability to bring about real and measurable change that has a real benefit for the environment. The alternative doesn’t have a sexy brand, doesn’t have pictures of mountain streams on the front of it, it comes out of your tap.”
HAT TIP: wl.theaustralian.news
Bisphenol or BPA is used primarily to make plastics. It is also an endocrine disruptor widely-suspected of leading to an assortment of health problems. Now, Science News has published an article suggesting that sales receipts (yes, sales receipts) may provide even greater exposure to BPA than plastic. For more about the research that led to this startling conclusion, visit www.sciencenews.org.
Hat Tip: thedailygreen.com
Phthalates are chemical “plasticizers” used in hundreds of consumer products. Billions of pounds of phthalates are produced every year despite the fact that they’ve been banned in the European Union, Japan, Mexico and Argentina. Researchers believe most of the phthalates in our bodies come from food and studies show they disrupt hormones — in this case, testosterone. Just one more reason you should seek out alternatives to plastic (e.g., BioBags — 100% biodegradable and 100% compostable bags and films – for information visit biobagusa).
Hat Tip: Peligro Films and www.webmd.com.
Photo: iPhone 3G Case available on eBay
Fashions may fade, but plastics last forever. Fortunately, the designers at Bagir are picking up disposable plastic bottles (soooo last season) and transforming them into some of today’s hottest fashions.
For everything from washable clothing made from 55% recycled PET bottles to the transparent suit that turned a few heads at last month’s New York Fashion Week, click on over to bagir.com.
These shoes were made out of recycled plastic bags by Childean design student Camila Labra. The bags were fused together and the result is a material that is flexible, light, and non-toxic. They can be bought for about $45 USD. For more information, visit botasdacca.blogspot.com and if necessary, bring a translator.
Very impressive indeed. Loll Designs have figured out a way to take used plastic milk jugs and transform them into some of the most imaginative and stylish outdoor furniture we’ve ever seen.
What did you think we were talking about? Check ‘em out here.
The Polymer Energy company has been working hard for years and claims to have struck oil in a most unexpected place – your local landfill. Using a process called “catalytic pyrolysis,” the company claims to have developed a viable way to turn plastic waste (including disposable shopping bags and household cleaner containers) into crude oil. Finally – a domestic energy source we can all get behind. Learn more here.
Plastic bags can be fused to make reusable grocery bags, wallets, and more. For instructions, visit etsylabs.blogspot.com.
Hat Tip: thegivinghands.org
What’s the matter, Bizarro? Can’t even punch your way out of a plastic bag? ~ Batman in “Challenge of the Superfriends” (1978)
CLICK CHART TO ANIMATE.
Image: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “Trash is swept up by the currents of a gigantic swirling vortex called the North Pacific Gyre.”
Hat Tip: greenpeace.org/usa/
Plastic film is a thin gauge packaging medium used as a bag or a wrap.
Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas.
More than 60 percent of plastic film uses low-density polyethylene.
Polyethylene is 100 years old this year.
That’s way beyond retirement age, right?
Hat Tip: http://www.greenfeet.net.
Photo taken from the ORV Alguita
The following is an edited blog post from the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita. It’s followed by Steve Lawrence’s account of our journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. FROM THE ALGUITA: …after one attempt that caused the seaplane to bounce three times across the water before it found air and speed to climb back up, they aborted the mission. The pilot came over the radio saying they were unable to land due to the confused nature of seas producing large swells with only five knot winds. The captain said he understood and saw the rough ride they had with the attempt to land. And the pilot came back, “You should have seen what it looked like from here. It could have ended badly.” But all was not lost. The captain asked if the pilot he would check for any debris sightings. After making several laps around the area, the pilot came back on the radio to report they saw not one but two huge wind-rows of plastic debris. He started rattling off things they could recognize from above including a coat hanger. On his last lap around, the pilot preformed an air drop. The packaged contained something the captain had asked him to bring for a badly needed part for a generator. Thank you.
FROM GREENLANDOCEANBLUE CO-FOUNDER STEVE LAWRENCE:
17 September 2009
It is 5:30 am in Honolulu on this mid-September morning, the sky is dark and it is nearly soundless. Early, no doubt, but the energy brewing among those gathered is not generated from the airport hanger’s coffee pot. Indeed, the buzz this morning is all about the Patch.
We have come to the Kamaka Air Hanger with a singular itinerary – an historic, 600 mile flight into a southern portion of the North Pacific gyre, or as headlines across the world have broadcast it – The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. There we are to rendezvous with Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation – the man who actually discovered the patch a decade ago. This is an unprecedented journey, and we are fortunate to have secured the Billabong Clipper – a Grumman Albatross – the only plane capable of the four hour journey, the ocean landing and the return to Hawaii.
There are nine passengers in all, including a pair of students (one journalist, one biologist), an activist, an eco website editor, a mayor’s consultant, and myself, a filmmaker. We are greeted by Jacob Asher from NOAA, who confirms the importance of the journey and instructs us on how to observe and log debris sightings along the way. Mr. Asher has done his fair share of debris overflights around the Hawaiian Islands in the past few years. “Mark the latitude and longitude with accuracy down to the minute in the first column” he explains while indicating a grid which specifies commonly sighted items ranging from ghost nets to general debris such as plastic bags.
After a safety briefing, the props kick over and we are soon airborne, banking northward as the morning sun pulls itself from the vast Pacific and a morning blessing appears in the form of a rainbow. Mobile phones are soon rendered useless, due not only to lack of service, but the deafening roar of the engines that hoist the 30,000 ton craft.
We fly at a relatively low 1000 feet, which offers a much more intimate perspective that the typical 40,000 feet of a commercial aircraft. In fact, even before the island behind us has faded from sight, we spot our first debris – a loose buoy, now just another piece floating garbage being slowly pulled out to sea by the centrifugal swirl of the gyre.
As we all settle in, Hayden Smith is already at work. Mr. Smith, the activist, intently watches the surface below, pen and pad at the ready, tearing himself away from the window only to confirm coordinates with the cockpit. As a Harbour Master (that’s Harbour with a “u”) in Auckland, New Zealand, he knows the business of marine debris better than most. At the age of thirty one, he is a veteran environmental protector. With the support of the government his efforts have been concentrated on Waitemata Harbour for the past seven years. He hopes his meeting with Capt. Moore will help him better understand the Algalita’s research, and how he might apply the knowledge to his work back home.
The farther we travel, the greater the frequency of debris spotting. Log sheet notations range from ghost nets to bags and bottles – visible even from this height.
Tellingly, the most abundant animal life spotted from the plane are the many birds that skim the ocean surface. Three hundred miles from the closest land mass, the birds scan the waters and dive in for lunch. Unfortunately, what appears to be ocean life is often degraded plastic lurking just below the surface. Hundreds of thousands of these birds die every year from mistakenly ingesting these toxic remnants.
Three hours into the flight and the debris sightings soon develop a kind of rhythmic cadence. Surface debris flies by like confetti on the surface below, styrofoam cups, basketballs, bags, pure trash scattered in the texture of the sea. As the plane descends closer to the surface, the debris stream is a constant… 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4… 4/4 time beats of trash with scattered accents along the way. A sad song indeed.
In the vast blue sea, we spot the Algalita research vessel. Circling the craft, the pilots search for a window to safely land.
We are told to fasten seatbelts, yet in our attempt to land we are nothing more than a skipping stone. What looked land-able from a higher altitude is in fact a small but lumpy mix of swells. We pull up and the pilots take a wide lap riding a wind line. This line we are flying along is an ocean convergence zone — an area of converging forces. In this case, the forces in opposition are strong ocean currents. Along this definition in the sea, from horizon to horizon, is a line of trash. We stare in awe at what looks like the high tide line on the world’s most polluted beach. It is composed of a variety of plastics and debris, everything from broken coolers to milk crates.
Unfortunately, no camera can fully capture the sickening sight, especially traveling at our air speed. Every photograph is a blur. Yet one thing is perfectly clear, man’s impact on the once pristine Pacific.
Most remarkably, what we see is only the tip of the iceberg. This is only the surface debris. Just below the surface, the synthetics are mistaken for plankton and other edibles. It is no wonder wild life and sea life feed on it. Unlike the animals that live in and around landfills, these creatures have not been conditioned over time to recognize hazardous foodstuff. Since these species have existed, the food chain could be “trusted.” That is no longer the case.
The equation becomes frighteningly obvious. Small fish eat the plastic, medium sized fish eat the small fish, large fish eat medium-sized… and who eats the large fish? We do.
As we ponder the implications, the plane makes another pass at landing alongside Moore …. to no avail. The sea is simply too rough. The plane begins a gradual ascent and the realization hits us all. The disappointment is most evident on Hayden Smith’s face. He fights the urge to appeal the pilot’s decision. It was a long trip to be denied the destination… traveling all this way and just getting the post card. But, as Smith realizes, our safety is the primary concern… and we have in fact seen what we came to see. In this case the pictures do not tell 1000 words, but what we have seen is indelible.
As I settle back into my seat, frustration soon gives way to a renewed sense of purpose. People will argue that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an urban myth, they will dispute its size and density…. but there are eleven more of us who now know the truth. The Patch is real. We may not be able to fathom how it all got here… or how we might begin to clean it up… but we can and must take immediate steps to stop it from growing any larger.
On Board the Billabong Clipper
Pilots Mike Castillo, Lynn Hunt
Team Joel Clausen, Colby Munson, Keith Rollman, Hayden Smith, Ericka Staples
Camera Hugh Gentry, Bill Paris
GLOBe Steve Lawrence
With support from Billabong, Tenth Millennium
Today is the day! After months of planning and co-ordination, our team is off to the gyre. Filmmaker Steve Lawrence and crew have departed Hawaii aboard the Billabong seaplane and on are their way to the heart of the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” – a Texas-sized “toxic soup” where more than two million pounds of plastic debris are caught in a gigantic vortex of currents. This man-made disaster has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine animals, and as the latest research indicates, has lead to the contamination of human food chains.
On today’s historic journey, the GreenLandOceanBlue team and an international consortium of concerned individuals will rendezvous with Captain Charles Moore on the research vessel Alguita. They will spend the day documenting the garbage patch and interviewing the Alguita researchers in order to better understand the devastating effect of plastic pollution on the world’s oceans. Upon Steve’s return, the first Plastic Pacific film project will begin production. Stay tuned!
C21stSM, originally uploaded by uberschnapp.
Latest news from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: researchers are finding that jellyfish are eating the small pieces of plastic, and they in turn arevbeing eaten by larger fish, such as salmon and tuna. In other words, we’ve not only polluted the ocean with plastic but now we run the risk of being poisoned from the fish that ingest it.
GREENLANDOCEANBLUE is flying to the GPGP this Wednesday aboard the Billabong seaplane. Stay tuned for details.
Hat Tip: eastbayexpress
Plastic Pacific: greenlandoceanblue’s Excellent Journey, 9/15/09
On Tuesday, September 15th, film director and greenlandoceanblue co-founder, Steve Lawrence will fly from Hawaii via seaplane, the Billabong Clipper, with a group of planet-caring souls to an area of the Pacific known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Once there, the group will experience the environment first hand as they join the ocean research vessel Alguita, captained by Charles Moore – the man who discovered this once Texas-sized soup of plastic a decade ago.
Lawrence, who directed Disney’s recent X Games 3D, will produce a diary of the journey on film which greenlandoceanblue hopes can become the centerpiece of a global lesson plan to help educate students and the media about the growing problem of plastic waste worldwide.
On their flight to the Garbage Patch, the group will also be assigned the task of noting ocean debris with GPS units and the data they collect will be used to help NOAA scientists involved in at-sea detection and removal of large amounts of debris.
Credits: For more information about greenlandoceanblue, please visit www.greenlandoceanblue.com and for information about Capt. Charles Moore and Algalita Marine Research Foundation, visit, www.algalita.org.
Thank you, Billabong (www.billabong.com)
Photo Hat Tip: Splash & Play Seaplane available for purchase here.
SOME FACTS ABOUT BOTTLED WATER:
90% of the cost of bottled water is due to the bottle itself.
Well over 20 billion single-serving plastic bottles go to the dump per year in America from bottled water (not including soda).
Bottling and shipping water are the least energy efficient methods ever used to supply water.
Although it can be easy and convenient to pick up bottled beverage products, the end cost to the environment is staggering.
Namaste: greenupgrader.com
Lightweight, checkout-style plastic bags are now banned in South Australia. We Americans use 100 billion plastic checkout bags per year(producing them takes 12 million barrels of oil).
The world’s first Plastic Bag Free Day will be on the 12th September 2009. Leave plastic bags at the checkout, help to make your town Plastic Bag Free or join in the celebrations at town’s that have already stopped using plastic bags. You could also write to shops and supermarkets asking them to support the day. For more information, visit adoptabeach.org.uk.
Sea turtles can easily mistake floating plastic bags for jellyfish. As a result, they eat them and die from choking or simply from being unable to eat. A single dead turtle discovered near Hawaii had more than 1000 pieces of plastic in its stomach including a comb, a toy truck wheel, and nylon rope.
Learn why all of the world’s marine turtles are either endangered or threatened with extinction at panda.org.
Namaste: Bag Monster & seaturtle.org
Albatross adults fly thousands of miles in search of food for their young and often bring back plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by mistake.
In this inset photo you can see what was found in the stomach of just one dead Laysan albatross chick (photographers: David Liittschwager & Susan Middleton).
Namaste: dailymail.co.uk
Learn more about the world’s biggest garbage dump here. Coming soon: details about our own journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Researchers Head to Great Pacific Garbage Patch (blippitt.com)
Mr. Potato Head, originally uploaded by herobyday
A British company, Vegware, is using potatoes to create disposable items such as cutlery and tableware. Because they’re made from vegetable matter, the products are totally biodegradable. Vegware also produces take-out boxes made from sugar cane and compostable straws made from corn and other natural starches. Check them out at www.vegware.us.
Hat Tip: www.zible.com
Increasingly, plastic water bottles are being targeted as a major source of pollution. In response, cities around the world are promoting tap water (Venice, Italy, is branding it “Acqua Veritas” and cites a reduction of plastic trash by 27 tons a year.
Hoping to combat negative perceptions about plastics and single-use disposal litter, The Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) is about to launch a social media-based Internet campaign targeting the millennial generation.
Complete story: huffingtonpost.com
Once upon a time, the Citarum was a gentle waterway whose resident fish helped feed the millions who live along its banks. Today, the river is polluted by the by-products of more than 500 factories and the waste of nine million people. Foraging for rubbish is now a more profitable occupation than fishing, despite the high risk of disease.
Namaste: dailymail.co.uk.
It may take 1,000 years for plastic to decompose but decompose it does, which means there must be microorganisms out there doing the decomposing. Could they be bred to do the job faster? The question was recently answered by 16 year-old Canadian high school student, Daniel Burd, who immersed ground plastic in a yeast solution that encourages microbial growth, and then isolated the most productive organisms. He kept at it, selecting the most effective strains and interbreeding them. After several weeks of tweaking and optimizing temperatures, Burd achieved a 43 % degradation of plastic in six weeks, an almost inconceivable accomplishment. More of the story here.
Crocodile fish tangled in discarded net, originally uploaded by Debby Ng, Hantu Blogger.
Ghost fishing is the term for abandoned or lost fishing gear that keeps killing marine life for days, months, or even years after it vanishes.
A new United Nations report calls for more attention to the source. Most of the gear is made of plastic, and most of it comes from ships. And it is, of course, against the law to dump plastic at sea—specifically, it violates the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL).
The report recommends solutions aimed at prevention, mitigation and cure.
That translates to 1) reducing the likelihood of fishing gear being lost or dumped at sea 2) promoting biodegradability to make plastics less of a problem and 3) making it easier to track and recover lost gear. For details, click here.
An infographic is a “graphical exploration of the data that surrounds us.” This one is a look at plastic floating in the Pacific Gyre. Click here for the amazing, full-size version. Thanks to Peligro Films for the link to Good Magazine.
Consumerism, originally uploaded by jefftolentino.
Biodegradability may not be a worthy goal at all. Most landfills are tomb-like and, in the absence of oxygen, the process produces methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 21 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. But all’s not lost. In answer to the problem, companies like the UK’s Symphony Environmental Technologies have developed a special formulation called d2w, which makes plastic self-destruct in the presence of oxygen on land or water. While normal plastic may emit methane while decomposing, oxo-biodegradable plastics are made to degrade leaving no fragments and emitting no methane. So, do we have future or don’t we? You can begin to find the answers here. And here.
Related article: Breakthrough In Methane Research (popularlogistics.com)
Please do not feed the elephant!, originally uploaded by dhecker2000.
A new study finds that Styrofoam can be used to increase biodiesel power output. The study demonstrates that, by dissolving polystyrene packing peanuts in biodiesel, scientists can actually increase the power output of the fuel. Although plastic doesn’t break down easily in petroleum-based diesel, it breaks down almost instantly in biodiesel. Scientists are still facing some problems but the study co-authors hope to refine the process in the near future. Details here.
Plastic Issue, originally uploaded by Light and Life -Murali.
For sustainable living, what comes from the earth should go back to the earth. This has been done for millennia in rural India, by composting crop and food wastes. Now, in some parts of the country, environmental experts are exploring how plastic waste can be used for road construction. Click here for more information.
A fishing trip, originally uploaded by slavishtubesocks.
In 2007, a blog called “Fishes Feed Us,” was created by Art & Science Collaborations, Inc., and hosted by One Ocean, as a way for youth in New York City and the Indo-Pacific Region to exchange views about the fish crisis, telling their stories from the “fishes’ perspective” as well as from their own viewpoints. Here is some of what they had to say:
One day we will have to go to a museum to see a fish because we are eating up our ocean’s supply too fast, too soon. (Sameena – New York City)
Since the big commercial fishing vessels started coming into our local waters, there are fewer fish, and more pollution. If we can barely survive now, how are the future generations going to? (Francine – Malaysia)
I wish some groups would help fishers’ children so that they could go to school. It is every child’s right to be educated. (Angelica – New York City)
Boom! Everything seemed to stop. Then I saw fishes floating. Dead. With one dynamite explosion, the reefs, our home, were completely demolished. (Kristine – Philippines)
Education is the key. If people understand the human consequences of losing the world’s fish stocks, they will try and help stop the depletion. (Jasmine – New York City)
Red trash, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.
Plastic is a problem but so is paper:
1. Plastic bags require 40% less energy to produce than paper bags.
2. Paper bags produce 80% more solid waste than plastic and due to modern landfill techniques, don’t biodegrade much faster than their polyethylene counterparts.
3. It takes less energy to recycle a plastic bag than paper.
4. Plastic bags weigh less and take up less landfill space than their paper counterparts.
5. Paper bag manufacturing creates more air and water pollution than plastic bags.
Solution? Purchase reusable cloth bags and use them.
Hat Tip to http://www.greendaily.com
Chris Jordan is an artist who takes photographs that “portraits of American mass consumption.” His book, Running the Numbers, is a collection of huge, zoomed-out shots of the things we discard every day, e.g., this photo above that represents the 2 million plastic beverage bottles we Americans use every five minutes.
Detritic, originally uploaded by Brett Jordan.
Leatherback turtle at sunrise, originally uploaded by SEE Turtles.
Leatherback turtles, the most widely distributed reptiles on Earth, may have survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, but today they’re threatened with extinction themselves, in large part due to the carelessness of humans. Since jellyfish and marine debris concentrate where ocean water masses meet, the turtles feeding in these areas are vulnerable to ingesting plastic. Once leatherbacks ingest plastic, thousands of spines lining the throat and esophagus make it nearly impossible to regurgitate. The plastic can lead to partial or even complete obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract, resulting in decreased digestive efficiency, energetic and reproductive costs and, for some, starvation. “The frustrating, yet hopeful aspect is that humans can easily begin addressing the solution, without major lifestyle changes”, says Dalhousie University professor Mike James. “It’s as simple as reducing packaging and moving towards alternative, biodegradable materials and recycling.”
Blue Avocado lives here.
Beneath the heading, “Plastic Bag Still Up In Tree,” in an old issue of The Onion, we discovered that, according to employees at Boise Mutual Insurance, “the plastic shopping bag they first noticed Dec. 8 is still ensnared in the upper branches of a tree outside their workplace. ‘Well I’ll be–the darn thing is still up there,’ payroll secretary Barb Weicherle said. ‘I really thought this weekend’s gusts would have blown it out.’ Office manager Paul Probert was equally surprised, saying, ‘Son of a gun. It’s still there.’”
San Francisco Chronicle writer, Justin Berton, reminds us that the charming and oddly romantic video of a floating plastic bag in the film American Beauty would be pure catastrophe in the eyes of an oceanographer.
“In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that’s twice the size of Texas.” Read the complete article here.
Every year, the Ocean Conservancy sponsors an International Coastal Cleanup. Last year, volunteers collected more than 6.8 million pounds of trash. As they cleaned up trash, they recorded 11.4 million items from cigarette butts to fast food wrappers to cast-off appliances. Cleanups were conducted on ocean and waterway shorelines, as well as underwater by 10,606 divers and onboard watercraft by 1,236 boaters.
For details, visit www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=icc_home.
Terroir: A Sense of Place is the inaugural exhibition for an exciting new venue in Marin County at The Marin French Cheese Company. Originally a French term, the word terroir expresses the special characteristics that a specific landscape contributes to growing foods. For this exhibition, the definition has been co-opted to express the Sense of Place that these artists experience of nature.
For more information and directions, visit http://artatthecheesefactory.blogspot.com/.
