Plastic is forever. Every piece of plastic ever made still exists today. This cleanup is one way to raise awareness and put a dent in the problem. If you don't live near an ocean, there are always lakes and rivers that need your attention.
http://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2015/9/6/30th-annual-bigges...
Every third Saturday of September, volunteers all over the world gather at coastal and inland waterway beaches to pick up all the trash they can, tally it, and take it away. Their efforts are plugged in to their local communities, but collectively, they affect global change.
This September 19 is the 30th annual International Coastal Cleanup—the biggest volunteer event to benefit oceans in the world. Organized by the Ocean Conservancy, last year more than 560,000 participated in 91 countries, from Canada to Chile to Ghana, Australia to China to Greece. They removed more than 16 million pounds of trash strewn along 13,000 miles of shoreline.
Since the International Coastal Cleanup began, 10.5 million volunteers have picked up 192 million pounds of refuse. This year, a smart phone app, Clean Swell, will allow users to record every single piece of trash they pick up by selecting types of trash on the menu. This will help to figure out where it is coming from and track what harm it is causing.
We already know that most of the trash is plastic. The Top 10 of 2014, in descending order: cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic bottles, plastic bottle caps, plastic straws and stirrers, other plastic bags, plastic grocery bags, glass beverage bottles, beverage cans, plastic cups and plates. But the trash also gets weird: barbecues, bowling balls, plastic dinosaurs, shopping trolleys, wigs, wheelbarrows, paintbrushes, hardhats, a plastic banana. Money.
See what YOU can find.
Yea, the really big problem is the plastic bags and soft plastic. At least the harder plastics like the yogurt containers and water bottles can be recycled (besides hopefully getting re-used first).
I do re-use my plastic bags and try to minimize the amount I bring home by taking the cloth shopping bags.
My latest experiment is that I've stopped putting the kitty litter in bags to go to the dump. Now I've made a dumping spot in the bushes for the kitty litter. I'm not sure how this is going to fly in the winter, when the bushes die off and the nasty will be exposed. So far no complaints from the neighbors.
Hi Noa,
This post inspired me to check in on the floating island guy. Here's the latest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=257&v=TlCauxznAfA
Thanks for sharing, Wendy. Here's another video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnLhWpy_nqI