Captain Charles Moore appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman earlier this week. Moore is the first person to document the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gigantic gyre of marine litter that made up of 90% plastic waste. As Moore says, “Plastic is overtaking the natural world.”
Part 1:
Part 2:
Beth from Fake Plastic Fish has a great write-up of the segments, with some ideas about working towards a solution:
1) Commit to reduce our own plastic consumption as much as possible.
2) Talk to our family and friends about the problem and set an example that others can follow.
3) Support measures in our communities to ban plastic bags and other single-use packaging.
4) Support Extended Producer Responsibility legislation which would require manufacturers to provide for the entire life cycle of their products and remove the burden from communities and local governments. EPR laws in Europe have proven that when companies have to figure out how to recycle their stuff, they end up using fewer, less toxic materials in the first place.
This issue can seem depressing and overwhelming, but there are things we can do. What other steps can we take? We want to hear from you!
Thanks for mentioning the write up on Fake Plastic Fish! Just one little thing: both of your videos are Part 1. (I do stuff like that all the time by accident.)
You’re doing great work.
Hi Beth,
Thanks so much for that catch! It’s all fixed now. And thank you for all the work you do to help educate people about plastic waste. It is such a gigantic problem — this is anecdotal evidence, but we regularly run neighborhood clean-ups and stream clean-ups and I would guess that 90% of the trash we find is plastic. The saddest thing is plastic bags that get all shredded up and wrapped around tree branches. Sometimes the birds make nests out of them. Here is one pic we took: http://bit.ly/d4xWPN
It can seem discouraging at times, but we’re trying to stay optimistic and keep doing what we can!