If you're still using plastic bags, bottles, toys and so on...

[organic]

Why Midway | Midway *
Take 8 and a half minutes to watch the video on that page.

Keep in mind that only about 10% of rubbish floating at sea is actually dumped by boats... the rest of it comes from the land; or in other words... we put the rest of it there.

I actually knew about this before I saw the video just now but was staggered (and, I don't mind admitting, realy rather upset too) by the sheer scale of it all.

I already avoid using plastic - but this just made me determined to stop altogether. Time to start saving up for a load of terracotta seed pots and making trays from wood.



* If you're easilly upset and have already stopped using plastic, maybe give it a miss - otherwise, watch it and think on.

[Two_Sheds]

The film is shocking and horrifying and so sad. If you aren't going to watch it, basically it's about tons and tons of plastic debris floating around on the Pacific ocean.

Sea creatures and birds eat the plastic and die.

A lot of the plastic litter is dropped or flushed by us.

You should NEVER flush sanitary products, cotton buds, baby wipes, dental floss or nappies. The plastic gets flushed out to sea and doesn't decay. You can see it on our beaches.

Get involved? You can adopt a section of your local beach and clean it of litter: Adopt-a-beach and Beachwatch

You can sign a petition: http://www.adoptabeach.org.uk/pages/...h_petition.php

[Patchninja]

A very moving video. I had no idea of the pollution in the water to that extent!
It's very hard to avoid plastic. As for supermarket plastic shopping bags, they don't exist here any more. You take you own bags to the shops. I buy virtually no processed food apart from things like tinned beans. I try not to buy ham in those awful plastic trays.....buy how do you avoid toothbrushes?
Part of the problem is how these things are disposed of. They shouldn't be able to make their way into the sea.
Certainly something to think about. Thanks, Organic.

[Two_Sheds]

how do you avoid toothbrushes?

With these: Eco friendly Wooden Toothbrush

Or these which use less plastic than normal ones

[Bramble_killer]

i have plastic carrier bags from the supermarket but they are used for carrying lunch boxes and after that, as a bin liner for the waste.

We buy some processed food but we work full time and commute, we would love to be completely green but the alternatives are starve or have something ready for when we get home after a long day.

Of course, it's shocking to see the level of waste in the oceans and every one should do their bit but scaremongering people without real practical alternatives is difficult. I'm completely for recycling and reusing but it's getting near hysterical levels now.

Plastic (when used correctly) is a good solid material that lasts a long time with many useful properties.

[TEB]

According to the UN's Environment Programme, there are about 13,000 pieces in every square kilometre of sea (every sea or ocean)

[kernowyon]

Of course, it's shocking to see the level of waste in the oceans and every one should do their bit but scaremongering people without real practical alternatives is difficult. I'm completely for recycling and reusing but it's getting near hysterical levels now.

hear, hear.

[kernowyon]

Doh! you would think after three years I would get the hang of quotes!

[Nicos]

Yes- very touching.

I do try and do my bit, although I have to say that because French matches are so rubbish-(they either don't light , or snap in half) I've started to buy plastic lighters...OK- will be importing UK matches from now on!

Every bit helps me thinks.

[Bigmallly]

Although I do recycle everything I possibly can, I also think there is a little scaremongering going on. Having been on many cruises, I have never seen any pollution in the sea.

[TEB]

Although I do recycle everything I possibly can, I also think there is a little scaremongering going on. Having been on many cruises, I have never seen any pollution in the sea.

You would need very good eyesight to see it from the deck of a ship, I haven't seen the posted video but it isn't a new phenomena - just google on Pacific Gyre.

PS A typical 3,000 passenger cruise ship produces over eight tons of solid waste weekly

[Bigmallly]

PS A typical 3,000 passenger cruise ship produces over eight tons of solid waste weekly

The ships I have been on have massive skips waiting for them at the ports.

[bobleponge]

Pollution certainly does exist in the sea, just pop to the coast in winter BM and do a walk along the high tide mark, its staggering.
As a kid, and later as a growedy up after I'd left the army, I lived by the sea and spent most of my free time hanging about there, and the amount of stuff I picked up (even 35 years ago) was just amazing.
I was having a conversation with some friends recently, and they were explaining how the actual molecular make up of the sea is changing. There is plastic that apparently has degraded as far as it will, and is now floating about in the sea, invisible to the naked eye, but cannot degrade any further.
It had been a bit of a long night, and some of the facts and my memory may have been Pastis distorted, but its frightening really.

[Bigmallly]

I'm not denying it doesn't happen Bob, I just sometimes think it's exaggerated........It is an almost impossible task to get every person in the world to sing from the same sheet.

[TEB]

The ships I have been on have massive skips waiting for them at the ports.

Thats probably just the glass and aluminium waste as they cannot be disposed off onboard, typically solid waste is incenerated, pulped or ground up onboard and then dumped over the side (brother is in the merchant navy engineering officer), and that only accounts for solid waste, no mention of greywater/blackwater/bilge water, dumping ballast water from one ocean/sea into another ocean/sea, fortunately since about 200? cruise ships now utilise onboard treatment facilities to deal with gray/black water.