Garbage Island

Way out in the wild blue ocean lives a place of mythic proportions. Texas size proportions that is. A floating mass of plastic waste is slowly killing our ocean. When I first envisioned this island of garbage out in the middle of nowhere, I saw a huge mass of crap just floating as one. Where dead fish carcasses cover our plastic toss outs. I waited in anticipation as the documentary about this previously un-filmed mass of crap reached their destination. When I first saw "Garbage Island" I felt almost relieved. A lot to do about nothing. But jump into the water and you are covered in clear confetti, basically glitter. Well no life can live in that kind of glitter soup. When the documentary team took some samples, the waste to life ratio was disturbing. A typical "bad" sample gets about a 6:1 waste to life ratio. Life like plankton (aka carbon recyclers). Just one cup of of ocean water contains over 1/4 billion plankton. The sample taken at garbage island had a waste to life ratio of 1000:1 ratio. Plastic gradually breaks down to it's base polymers. It just continues to get smaller and smaller, but never actually degrades. The problem with this, is how the hell do we even go about removing billions of tons of plastic glitter from the ocean? At least if it was just a floating island of random crap, we could more easily collect it and then... (not sure).. but at least the collection method wasn't complete insanity. The aquatic life is eating this glitter too. It is causing all sorts of problems for them, including reproductive problems. So even if you don't give a fart about the ocean, I'm sure you like to eat fish. Well the same effects this plastic is having on Nemo it is having on people. It has been linked to miscarriages throughout Japan and diabetes (since this plastic attaches itself to fat cells once ingested). The rise in diabetes is also directly mirroring the rise in plastic production. But for now, this mass of ocean glitter is out of site and out of mind. We obliviously add over 64 million tons of waste to the ocean every year.

Plankton are the building blocks of ocean life. It is the beginning of the food chain. Life on earth relies on microscopic plant cells. If we continue to allow plastic to make it's way into our oceans, we will cut the main artery off of aquatic life. Plankton feeds on CO2 and emits an enormous amount of the O2 we breath. It has the capacity to absorb large amounts of CO2 ( which we are also emitting into the atmosphere at a sickening rate.) Perhaps the environment will save itself if we can stop shitting all over it. Bio-engineers are trying to harness the power of plankton (with plastic tarps ironically) to combat global warming, but it can't grow it in a waste filled ocean. Lets all hope that where we fail, the earth can self correct a species out of control and living in ways that cannot co-exist with the natural state of the earth.


Plastic is so embeded in our daily lives. I came across a blogger who was on a mission to exclude plastic from their lives. That is damn near impossible right now. We rely on plastic. If you look anywhere, bam, there it is. I'm not saying that we must stop using plastic altogether, but we need to start using it more responsibily. The easiest way for any person to limit their plastic consumption is just to stop using plastic bags everywhere you shop. Bring a reusable bag or just carry things if you can. Stop buying bottled water, but if you must, recycle the damn bottle!!! I am still amazed by people who do not recycle their bottles, cans and glass. It is sooooo easy. If we consume less plastic and make sure we recycle every piece we can, maybe we can stop glittering the ocean up.