Earth Day on Oprah

Trent

We recorded Oprah’s Earth Day Special yesterday.  If you didn’t get the chance to see it, She opened up the show with images of the North Pacific Gyre, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  This is known as the largest landfill (seafill?) in the world.  It consists of approximately 100 million of tons of floating garbage:  Plastics make up most of this, sometimes as deep as 90 feet.  I first learned of it when I read The World Witout Us by Alan Weisman.  Global warming may be the most talked about ecological issue of recent years, but in my opinion it has overshadowed a problem which will most likely be just as destructive to life on this planet:  Plastic.

Plastic has only been around for some 60 years.  It has in that short time become an ingredient in our daily lives.  Shopping bags, sandwich bags, water bottles, shrink wrap, food packaging, toys and

Would You Eat This?

their packaging…just take a look at your desk right now.  Your phone, computer, keyboard, mouse, printer, picture frames, pens, staplers…on and on.  It’s all plastic.  And it NEVER goes away. We recycle 1% of it.  The rest end up in landfills or our oceans from as far way as Iowa.

So what happens to it?
Plastic goes through a process of photodegradation brought on by the ultraviolet rays of the sun. This means that plastics just get broken down into smaller and smaller particles, but it’s still a polymer.  These small particulants end up in our fish and subsequently our food chain.  We’re eating and drinking it, feeding it to our kids.  I bet if you went into your bathroom right now and read the label on your exfoliant, you would find that it uses plastic – bite sized and headed right down your drain to waiting marine life.

What can we do?
Cleaning up the mess is not going to be easy, but if we just concentrate on stemming the tide of plastic garbage, that would make a huge difference.  Here’s some things that we do in our household:

1. Stop using plastic grocery bags. Use reusable bags.
2. Stop using bottled water.  Buy a Britta or RO unit for under your sink and buy a reusable bottle to carry around.
3. Grow your own food.  Most plastic is coming from your grocery store.
4. Pick up trash when you see it.  Organize 1 day a month that you walk your beach or neighborhood park with your family and friends.
5. RECYCLE

Tags: Alan Weisman, cancer, food, Great Pacific Garbage Patch, marine life, North Pacific Gyre, photodegradation, Plastic, polymer