Poisoned by plastic!
@owlwings (43897)
Cambridge, England
August 25, 2008 5:59am CST
Well, of course, it isn't your plastic waste I'm talking about! Even if you live near the ocean or sail on it, I'm sure that you never threw away a plastic wrapper or a plastic water bottle or any of the other junk that we discard every day so that it could be carried by ocean currents!
This short BBC video is very shocking: http://tinyurl.com/deadlyplastic please watch it, if you can!
The Midway islands in the North Pacific are about as far away from humanity as it is possible to get and is the home of thousands of Albatross yet, because of ocean currents, all sorts of unperishable flotsam and jetsam can end up on its shores.
Albatross feed their chicks on squid and, unfortunately, a lot of this plastic looks rather like squid. The team who were working to clean up the island said that every bird on the island had some plastic in its stomach and many birds die, of course, because the plastic chokes them and they are unable to feed.
What are your thoughts about this? Will it ever be possible to rid the planet of the plastic scourge? Can you think of any way of preventing this rubbish from killing our beautiful planet?
6 responses
@MsTickle (25180)
• Australia
3 Sep 08
My feeling on this subject is that people seem to prefer to remain in ignorance of these facts, preferring to complain about the inconvenience of not using plastic products. Our comfort and convenience seems more important than the lives of the creatures affected by this junk.
This is a disgraceful and cruel situation and I am shamed by it.
@Pigglies (9329)
• United States
26 Aug 08
It is sad that people will throw away stuff in the ocean. I volunteer with wildlife rehab (marine mammals) and we see a lot of problems with discarded fishing nets and fishing hooks hurting animals. But plastic can hurt them as well. Best not to throw anything into the ocean.
@nannacroc (4049)
•
25 Aug 08
I wish I could think of something. That was a brilliant film but how do we know that some of the things being found aren't ours from the time when rubbish was dumped in the sea. One day man will look at the consequences of what he is doing before going ahead and doing it but we'd better not hold our breath waiting for that to happen.
@checapricorn (16060)
• United States
25 Aug 08
[i]Ohhh...that is very sad! I know not everyone has exerting effort to take care of their trash properly, others have the courage to just throw it anywhere! If everyone will be educate about this, it will be helpful!
This is so sad and I wish this news will reach those people who are guilty about this action![/i]
@hiddenwing (3719)
• China
25 Aug 08
Plasitic is usually made of polythene or something, which is hard to degrade.
It is synthetical, thus people can change its structual. So, chemist need to pay more attention. Degradable plastic, for example, is a good substitute.
Also, the plastic is restrictive in some country.
Thus, everything will be better!
@bellis716 (4799)
• United States
26 Aug 08
I usually ask for plastic bags at the commissary because I recycle them by taking them to our local thrift shop to use. However, I'm having second thoughts about that and will ask if they could use paper bags instead. I wish I knew the answer for all the debris that people throw on our streets and highways. When I was a child, one never saw bottles beside the road because they were worth money, a nickel for a coke bottle and 2 cents for the smaller Grapette bottle. I can't see today's children bothering with small change like that. More glass bottles instead of the plastic ones might help. The glass could be ground up and used in concrete paving.
