The Beacon
Sea Trash in the NYT
Perhaps you've heard about the "Garbage Patch," the unthinkably large flotilla of trash, much of which is plastic, floating in the Pacific Ocean. If you haven't -- or even if you have -- check out this piece from yesterday's New York Times Magazine.
And if you don't have time to read the admittedly long (but well worth it!) article, then commit this sentence from the article to memory:
"Scientists estimate that every year at least a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die when they entangle themselves in debris or ingest it."
Or this quote, by Lorena Rios, an environmental chemist at the University of the Pacific: “If you go to Subway, and they give you the plastic bag, how long do you use the plastic bag? One minute. And how long will the polymers in that bag last? Hundreds of years.”
As the author discusses, there's no obvious (or even semi-obvious) answer to the problem. But you can start by learning more about it, signing our plastics pledge, and getting the word out.
[Image via www.nytimes.com]
