Group Finds 6 Million Pounds of Trash on World's Beaches

[Pale Rider]

Group Finds 6 Million Pounds of Trash on World's Beaches

2008-04-15 17:36:13
By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The world's beaches and shores are anything but pristine. Volunteers scoured 33,000 miles of shoreline worldwide and found 6 million pounds of debris from cigarette butts and food wrappers to abandoned fishing lines and plastic bags that threaten seabirds and marine mammals.

A report by the Ocean Conservancy, to be released Wednesday, catalogues nearly 7.2 million items that were collected by volunteers on a single day last September as they combed beaches and rocky shorelines in 76 countries from Bahrain to Bangladesh and in 45 states from southern California to the rocky coast of Maine.

"This is a snapshot of one day, one moment in time, but it serves as a powerful reminder of our carelessness and how our disparate and random actions actually have a collective and global impact," Vikki Spruill, president of the Ocean Conservancy said in an interview.

The 378,000 volunteers on average collected 182 pounds of trash for every mile of shoreline, both ocean coastlines and beaches on inland lakes and streams, providing a "global snapshot of the ocean trash problem."

The most extensive cleanup was in the United States where 190,000 volunteers covered 10,110 miles — about a third of the worldwide total — and picked up 3.9 million pounds of debris on a single Saturday last September, according to the report.

That's 390 pounds of trash per mile, among the highest rates of any country, although the high number also reflects the large number of U.S. volunteers who took part, said Spruill. By comparison, volunteers in neighboring Canada collected 74 pounds per mile and those in Mexico, 157 pounds per mile, said the report. About 65 pounds of trash were collected per mile in China and 46 pounds per mile in New Zealand. Volunteers covered one mile in Bahrain and found 300 pounds of trash.

Article continues here...

[Yurt]

its appalling. check this out:

The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a stewy body of plastic and marine debris that floats an estimated 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, is a shape-shifting mass far too large, delicate and remote to ever be cleaned up, according to a researcher who recently returned from the area.

But that might not stop the federal government from trying.

Charles Moore, the marine researcher at the Algalita Marina Research Foundation in Long Beach who has been studying and publicizing the patch for the past 10 years, said the debris - which he estimates weighs 3 million tons and covers an area twice the size of Texas - is made up mostly of fine plastic chips and is impossible to skim out of the ocean.

"Any attempt to remove that much plastic from the oceans - it boggles the mind," Moore said from Hawaii, where his crew is docked. "There's just too much, and the ocean is just too big."

The trash collects in one area, known as the North Pacific Gyre, due to a clockwise trade wind that circulates along the Pacific Rim. It accumulates the same way bubbles gather at the center of hot tub, Moore said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../MNT5T1NER.DTL

[manu1959]

its appalling. check this out:

The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a stewy body of plastic and marine debris that floats an estimated 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, is a shape-shifting mass far too large, delicate and remote to ever be cleaned up, according to a researcher who recently returned from the area.

But that might not stop the federal government from trying.

Charles Moore, the marine researcher at the Algalita Marina Research Foundation in Long Beach who has been studying and publicizing the patch for the past 10 years, said the debris - which he estimates weighs 3 million tons and covers an area twice the size of Texas - is made up mostly of fine plastic chips and is impossible to skim out of the ocean.

"Any attempt to remove that much plastic from the oceans - it boggles the mind," Moore said from Hawaii, where his crew is docked. "There's just too much, and the ocean is just too big."

The trash collects in one area, known as the North Pacific Gyre, due to a clockwise trade wind that circulates along the Pacific Rim. It accumulates the same way bubbles gather at the center of hot tub, Moore said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../MNT5T1NER.DTL

how do you know this exists.....

[Mr. P]

Does anyone remember the commercial on littering where they showed trash and an Indian turning to the camera with tears on his cheeks?
It was in the 70's I think.

Anyway, I feel the same as that Indian did these days. I am appalled at the mess that people who supposedly love the outdoors leave behind them in the wild.

Leave it as you found it or better...is my practice. No one should ever know I was there.

[hjmick]

Iron Eyes Cody.

[Yurt]

how do you know this exists.....

the evidence seems legit manu, are you saying it is a hoax? i checked the net, and there are those who believe it a hoax because no pictures have been taken, which admittedly has me thinking it may be a hoax. then again, as i understand it, most of the debris is under water.

some of the evidence that leads to believe something like this exist (i don't think it is a solid mass btw) is the trash that lands on many pacific islands.

[Mr. P]

Iron Eyes Cody.

Donno mick, but that rings a faint bell.

[PostmodernProphet]

well, I want to extend my thanks to them for actually cleaning a beach instead of just bitching that the beach was dirty.....

[Dilloduck]

Perhaps charging people to dispose of waste in the proper manner isn't such a great idea.

[Abbey Marie]

Perhaps charging people to dispose of waste in the proper manner isn't such a great idea.

Just wait until all of those dangerous green lightbulbs start showing up.