BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Subject: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:41 AM

Twice the size of Texas, just circling around in the Pacific Ocean and getting bigger every day...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/10/19/SS6JS8RH0.DTL&type=politics

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm


Just this once, I wish pictures could be embedded in threads...

Giant Sea Turtle horribly deformed by a band of plastic around its middle

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:59 AM

I saw a program about this a couple of months back. No one lays claim to the trash so no one is picking it up. Typical.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:35 AM

THis a grim thing, deeply saddening.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:58 AM

I sailed the prevailing winds westerlies into the horse laditudes or the middle north latitudes till we came into where the doldrums are, were 2 different wind patterns meet & the sea comes to a smooth ocean of glass & there's hardly a current of a breath of wind. This was back in the late 70's. That's were all the sea trash meets &ends up & goes nowhere. We salvage netted flotting sea glass balls until we had no place to store them. They can be sold onshore. We thought on day we had hooked a great size blue fish, turned out to be a blue laundry basket, of course it was empty. We found what at the time both crusie ships & airliners had jetsoned mid ocean, I believe even back then there may have been laws prohibiting such waste dumping. but it was a dump back then I can only imigine what's it like now. Even the dead horses would high-tail it out fo there. Sad statement. The West Coast is not yet a dying zone as is the Northeast but it is following fast.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:01 AM

Wow, rereading my last post, I should be barred from posting in the future so late at night

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 10:15 AM

We need a fleet of huge sailing cats, equipped with shallow nets, cruising the whole region from April to September, with a mother-ship to containerise their harvest. An international effort, spearheaded, perhaps, by Green Peace. Tons of photos of the disgusting littering of the oceans.

And possibly tracking down to origin where possible and levying fines or sentences on the perps.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 10:16 AM

That's a good post, Barry.

Seems like someone could make some money trawling up the plastic and selling it to recyclers. Would that not work?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 10:30 AM

I doubt it would be profitable, but it should be done anyway.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: bobad
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 10:48 AM

I think we need a new model that's not profit based in order to salvage what is left of this planet, I have no idea of what that would be, I leave it to bigger brains than mine, I can only do my part.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 11:08 AM

This goes along with what the docu says about Stuff.

We never let balloons go when we lived near the ocean because we knew what might happen if a sea creature or bird got hold of one. When you are landlocked, as in Colorado, it becomes difficult to convince folks they should use canvas bags, etc. as they see no correlation between here and the sea and garbage, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Bee
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:41 PM

There's always a complication, when trying to do the right thing. Here, for example, a major grocery chain has been very proactive in getting shoppers to use cloth bags, and they conveniently sell 99 cent bags which are a good size, strong, and even attractive.

Catch: they also time their cashiers on how fast they pack bags, and there are perks for fast checkers and reprimands for slow ones. The cloth bags take more time (almost twice as much, according to employees I spoke with) to pack than the plastic throwaways, therefore checkers are not motivated to encourage use of the reuseables. Strategies these employees may use in an effort to keep their packing times acceptable to management include: pretending not to notice the customer's reuseable bags, filling the reuseables with just a few large items and using plastic for everything else, using plastic and letting the customer put the plastic bags into the reuseables.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:07 PM

You're probably talking about Whole Foods. I think, if enough of their customers knew they were doing that, they would probably make some changes. I'm wondering if there's some kind of stand that could be made to hold the reusable bags while they're being packed that would decrease the packing times.

I think the answer to these problems is what these days is being called 'conscious capitalism'. That's capitalism that values the bottom line, but not to the extent that it sacrifices the planet or hurts people or animals. Chains like Whole Foods rely on attracting customers for whom conscious capitalism is a major consideration when deciding where to shop. Businesses like that have to be responsive to the values of these customers if they want to do well.

I bet a non-profit organization could be established along the lines of Habitat for Humanity, in which people who want to have an experience of being at sea could get that experience for free by volunteering to crew salvage ships that would trawl for trash in the ocean's garbage patches. The operation could be funded the same way that other environmental outfits are, plus they could partner with other organizations that make things using plastic. Environmentally conscious people would pay extra for products made from this plastic if they knew it was being used to fund a cause like this.

Here's an interesting discussion on the subject of conscious capitalism (a little over an hour long)...

http://fora.tv/2008/01/30/Conscious_Capitalism

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Alice
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:48 PM

In early grade school my son learned about the birds who get caught in circles of soda and beer can holders. If we ever buy those, we cut them into small bits so there are no holes for birds to be caught in.

I've seen documentaries of the ocean garbage patch. Terrible problem. Also, the large fishing nets that have broken loose are destructive, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:51 PM

At several points in my MS program, which was a blend of MBA course and high-tech study, the notion was asserted to students that profit was the only reason for being in business -- this tired proposition was trotted out as a kind of mantra or ancient truism which could not be gainsaid. Every time one of the profs trotted out, I raised objections on exactly the grounds Carol is talking about -- that profit motives that are not balanced by an understanding of long term dynamics make for destructive short-term choices with short-term profits and long-term harm attached to them.

While a number of the students in those courserooms heard my point with interest, most of the professors just smiled and nodded, being unwilling to re-evaluate their hoary truisms so close to the bone.

It was an interesting experience and a study in the kind of willful ignoral human minds can embrace when they think they have a good fixed datum and don't want to shake it up.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:46 PM

ignoral = ignorant + immoral?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:47 PM

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:51 PM

That's it. It's a psychobabble term I think. Conclusive, intentional ignorance...built around a fixed idea that says "think no further"...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Metchosin
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 03:05 PM

We are also having other problems too in the Pacific Ocean and a bit closer to home.

Dead Zone forms along Pacific Coast

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Slag
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 05:01 PM

The experts/scientists say that it is so large (yes almost twice the area of Texas) that there is no solution to the problem. It would almost literally bankrupt the world to clean it up. The best hope is to prevent it from getting larger. Good luck. The great world powers cannot even muster the ability to fight the resurgence of piracy on the high seas as well as in intra-national shipping lanes.

We don't need to worry about the question of "Global Warming". If we choke the life out of the oceans none of us will live to know if global warming is a fact or a fiction. This is a real and an immediate problem that really cannot go away on its own. Woe to the creature that fouls its own nest!

Please pass the Soylent Green.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Bee
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 05:35 PM

Carol C, not Whole Foods - an eastern Canadian chain, which employs a significant number of my relatives. The company has an odd mix of progressive and regressive policies. They are very good to employees in terms of sick leave, accommodating disabilities, gradually bringing people back to work as they recover from illnesses or surgeries, and encouraging young people to get educated by guaranteeing holiday/summer work, once they've worked there. On the other hand, they have the bag issue, employees can be fired for serving relatives at checkouts or counters, and so on.

But that's off topic, sorry guys.

Except... all of us could stand to use less plastic. I think bottled water is one of the most wasteful inventions in recent years. Yes, they are returnable, yes they can be reused by the purchaser, but there are so many of them, and likely half end up, if not out in the ocean, at least littering the landscape. I certainly see enough of them washed up along the coast here. Not to mention, most of it is just tap water, basically.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 05:44 PM

That's interesting, Bee. I had heard that Whole Foods was selling the bags for 99 cents, which is why I thought you were talking about them. I know a lot of the grocery stores in Canada are pretty enlightened compared to most of the grocery stores here in the US. Maybe they would be receptive to somebody coming up with a way to make the reusable bags quicker to fill (whoever invented something like that could potentially make a bit of money).

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 10:49 PM

There was a guy on a broadcast yesterday -- I think it came through on Washington Journal on C-Span--in any event, he was talking about new maratime regulations that required that commercial vessels have to cut all pieces of plastic into one-inch diameter pieces before they can throw them overboard.

                   This might prevent them from floating on the surface so they wouldn't create the kind of Garbage Patch we are talking about here, but wouldn't they then just sink to the bottom and do some kind of similar damage there?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 12:36 AM

The smaller bits of plastic absorb all kinds of toxins in the ocean (that in itself ought to be of some concern), and marine life eat them and get poisoned. But they might end up floating anyway. The majority of the plastic seems to be in the form of tiny pellets that apparently do quite a lot of harm that way.

A better regulation would be to require them to not throw plastic overboard at all. I don't know how big that garbage patch has to get before the people who make those regulations figure this out, though. People are really stupid. :-\

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 02:07 PM

I heard a sailor say he saw this "patch"
but he said it went as far as the eye could see in a huge band that could be seen to be a half mile across.

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 02:38 PM

Garbage, garbage, garbage!

I believe Malvina Reynolds composed an appropriate song about this.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Amergin
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 04:22 PM

I thought this was going to be about California....

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: Slag
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 05:00 PM

If it floated to shore that would be a good thing. It would raise people's awareness and it could be dealt with relative ease. Same as to the floating stuff. It is easier to reach than the gunk that hangs halfway down. It is harder for the sea animals to determine what it is before ingesting or becoming ensnared. The toxic crap is really frightening. There is little or nothing you can do about it. At the top of my list of the MOST obnoxious pollutants are the hundred mile long trawling nets that have been lost or cast off for some reason from those floating fish processing plants. A very large proportion of them come from Japan. That type of industry needs to be STOPPED. PERIOD! They're not just fishing our oceans to death but the fallout of overboard waste is killing everything else! We do NOTHING! as a nation, as the great world power, to stop this travesty!

There is a point in scenarios like this where a critical mass is reached. It can be illustrated thus: Imagine a pond that has been invaded by a water plant that, if left unchecked will smother the pond. The plant doubles is size each day. Well the pond's owner eventually becomes aware of the noxious weed's presence but he thinks, "It just a tiny bit. I'll take care of it later." This goes on for several days. He has other more pressing issues. One day he sees the pond is about half covered by the weed and he thinks to himself, "I will take care of this first thing in the morning!" But when he wakes the pond is dead!

No one knows where the critical mass point is in our oceans but there IS such a point and when the cascade of extinction and whatever biology will replace it, (if any) begins, there truly will be nothing we can do EVER. And it could even mean the extinction of our species.

Remember that at one time the atmosphere of Earth was NOT oxygen bearing. The earliest organisms were fat and happy and THEIR waste was oxygen! It accumulated in the atmosphere but, ah, so what? That was a wholly different "ocean" to these little critters. They had no intelligence so how could they know? Eventually they all smothered, were poisoned by the oxygen and they ALL died out. Lucky us! That ensured that OUR life forms could evolve! Aren't you glad that WE have intelligence? If something like that began to happen here in our world we would do something to stop it! Wouldn't we?

Subject: RE: BS: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 06:21 PM

Easter Island comes to mind.