Unending amounts of plastic pellets wash onto beaches worldwide. In New Zealand, one beach was found to contain over 100,000 pellets per square meter. Thus, it is not so farfetched to suggest that people are in fact sunbathing on plastic beaches - literally.
“I have stopped my ship in mid-ocean and found flip-flops, suntan oil bottles, plastic Coke bottles, garbage bags, and even large floating industrial plastic sheets. In each place sampled, we have also found plastic pellets,” Watson said. “Once, on the bottom of the Mediterranean off France, I witnessed a scene that appalled me. The entire bottom was made of plastic. Bottles and plastic bags swaying with the tide, replacing the sea grasses and algae. It was sad to see one little fish scurry from behind a white plastic bag to take cover from me in a sunken automobile tire.
“Brushing aside another drifting white bag, I spied a flicker of red on the bottom. What I found was a plastic face staring up at me with a great big smile and two enormous plastic ears. It was the decapitated head of a Mickey Mouse doll.”
What can we do to change this destruction of our natural world? We need an incentive driven, 10-20 cent deposit/return on all plastics sold anywhere in the world to ensure return. Such an economic incentive will make certain that all plastic will be returned either by the customer or an army of kids picking up plastic trash for money. Simple, easy and effective!
How can you take action: www.plasticrecycling.com ; www.greenerchoices.org ; www.seasheperd.org ; www.peopleinaction.com
Take action: www.thesocialcontract.com ; www.numbersusa.com ;
Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at his website www.frostywooldridge.com
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