Why Trashing the Oceans is More Dangerous Than We Imagined

Good Grief!

I've never seen such a trashed out beach in my life!
Where was the photo taken? Seems that the municipality
should place ubiquitous trash and recycling containers every
100 feet to accomodate the large #s of people visiting the beach.

Also it would behoove them to place $1000 littering fine signs along
with the containers since littering people are seriously lacking in
common sense or decency.

What a shocking testimonial to the egocentric, foolhardy and
apathetic culture that exists in these United States. I am
ashamed to call these people fellow Americans.

Michael P. Walsh
Lake Tahoe, CA
mwalsh2222@hotmail.com

I'm intrigued that you assume this is an American beach. If I were to guess I would say it is somewhere in Asia

I never looked at it from this angle before. What we put out in this world really does come back to us, even through the food we eat. Thank you for posting this article.

Most beaches in California look like that after every holiday. No matter how many trash cans they put out, there are never enough and people do not want to pack sandy wet trash back in their car.

I read a similar article last year in "Best Life" magazine ("Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we?"). It's indeed a sad state of affairs, but the truth is that the large majority of the population just don't care. I try my best at reducing the amount of plastic I use and recycle what I can't avoid, but most people have the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality when it comes to the Gyre.

Until people realize that this isn't just another crusade from those crazy "eco-terrorists", it'll get worse.

Agreed. People just dont understand every bit of pollution you causes comes back to "Someone". Its the fact that they dont think it will affect them in anyway that keeps them doing it.

Its exactly the same with almost all enviormental pollution. We are also still just putting suage straight into rivers and streams.

Meh. But as usual we wont get it until its 2 late.

-Word.of.Warcraft

All the trash swirls up toward the north of hawaii from the west coast, dang we are filty people. They should create an effort to fish out the trash.

Although you may assume that the picture was taken on some beach nearby, it was actually taken on the north-east coast of Taiwan, near Taipei, after a music concert. Here's the address:

http://flickr.com/photos/poagao/764908903/

This is an arguable topic, although Al Gore would disagree. I found this article on ecology which is completely different from anything I heard of on the subject matter of environment and ecology

This is an arguable topic, although Al Gore would disagree. I found this article on ecology which is completely different from anything I heard of on the subject matter of environment and ecology
http://www.kabtoday.com/epaper_eng/content/view/epaper/6183/(page)/1/(article)/6185

Yes, people wll be horified to learn of this. But then they'll forget about it and go on w/ their lives. The key to a solution must involve much more than informing.

More exaggerations and half-truths.

For instance, the article states: "Already, British researchers have discovered that in a “typical sample of the sandy material gathered” along shorelines, one-quarter of the weight may be plastic particles."

The BBC article cited actually says this:

"In a typical sample of the sandy material gathered at the high tide mark on shorelines, one-quarter of the total weight may be composed of plastic particles."

The PopSci article left out the critial detail "gathered at the high tide mark on shorelines". In other words, a sample of the detrious in a thin line along the shore. PopSci's devious editing makes it seem that 1/4 of the material on the whole beach is plastic. This is a clear exaggeration, and not even half true.

I shall say that some of the plastic may be below the high tide mark due to sinking and mixing in with the sand.