"A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said."Toxic plastics, which are said to account for 90% of all ocean garbage, are caught up in currents that eventually sweep them to this depository between the west coast of N. America and Japan. They act as a magnet for DDT and hydrocarbons, making the soup much more dangerous than we might instinctively think. What's more, these plastics can take thousands of years to decompose.
"Unless consumers cut back on their use of disposable plastics, the plastic stew would double in size over the next decade," said one researcher.
Perhaps we should find this comforting. To have a legacy like this. To know that we'll always have a toxic creature growing and lingering in our shadow, virtually outside the realm of enforceable law. Something that, after global warming sets in, can melt into a shiny, stain-free new sea-floor.
But I don't. For some reason, I think this is a better idea.
Labels: environment, slow learners, toxic soup
3 Comments:
If you go into the middle of the ocean and take a sample of water, you will almost always pick up plastic debris. Isn't it scary that you can be hundreds of miles from any coast and still be surrounded by human waste?
Woops! Was still signed into our theatre account apparently!
According to this, if you're as far away from any coast as worldly possible, the plastic build-up actually gets bigger. Downright lovely.
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