I don't typically write about this sort of thing, but it was something I became aware of around a decade ago and has changed how I deal with plastics ever since.
I am not much of a "causes" type of person, I just try to be a good person, help others, and give a shit about our world and other lives. After learning about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch I have changed to be very motivated about recycling as much plastic as I possibly can.
You likely have never heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, most I believe are unaware it exists and to what extreme. Although there are many "Garbage Patches" in the ocean, this specific one is estimated to be twice the size of the state of Texas.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is estimated to be up to 9 feet deep and has over 7 million tons of waste, 80% of that being plastics. It is estimated we are using over 1 million plastic bottles per minute 91% of these are not recycled, and a lot of these end up in our oceans.
These garbage patches are not devoid of life, there are many creatures living in these areas and are at serious risk. At least 9% of the fish in the area are estimated to have ingested plastics thinking it is food. This is not limited to fish, as birds in the area have also mistaken plastics for food.
It can take up to five years for plastics to reach the Great Pacific Garbage Patch from North Americ and up to 1 year from Asia. The amount of time it takes for most plastics to degrade will surprise you.
Most of these plastics won't be gone in your lifetime or even if your offspring's. Recycling is extremely effective at solving this problem, as much of this plastic is going to be here forever for all intensive purposes.
Amazingly there are not a lot of good videos on the Garbage Patches, most just show some pictures with some moving music but don't discuss the real problem and what it means.
Anything you can recycle can go a long way to reduce this. Letting just one other person know about this problem can amplify that effect. Recycling paper and other products is a good idea, but recycling plastics is critical to our survival on this planet.
Next time you goto a fast food restaurant or entertainment facility like the movies, watch how much plastic is thrown in with normal trash and is not recycled. I won't even get into our trash problem in general, a problem that is extremely difficult to solve due to the amount mass involved.
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I recycle everything I can. Hopefully doing my bit. Although it is clearly not enough.
This is quite sad. We should put a conscious effort to save our environment. Sad
I recycle as well. It is really sad to see, even in advanced countries where all infrastructure is implemented to make recycling as easy as possible, that people still choose not to do it.
What if I told you there is a fungi that eats polyurethane that was found in the Amazon?
Awesome post. This is horrible. I never new this is whats going on. We have a eco friendly systems on the farm is so important. Thanks for sharing!
Hi I was led by a steemian friend to see your post..As a chemist, I am familiar with these issues.
I consider to vote for you as a witness if the environmental subject is part of your agenda, is it?
It's not my witness agenda, but as a tenant on this planet, it is something I care about.
Thanks for your reply, I am a beginner in Steemit were can I see your agenda?
steemit.com/@themarkymark :)
I have decided to vote for you, Good Luck !
I voted as well, so far not disappointed :)
:)
Thanks :)
@themarkymark great post! I’m very conscious of recycling and try by best to recycle as much as I can. I think if we want people to do it more often then it has to be easy. That’s why I’m a big proponent of single stream recycling and curbside pickup. I just moved to an area that is more rural than I’ve ever lived before and was appalled to find out there is no curbside recycling or trash. And even the county dump only has cardboard and aluminum recycling. I have to drive almost 30 minutes to recycle glass and plastic. So I’m going to have to figure out a better way to recycle.
This huge disaster connects me to a a Dutch person, named Boyan Slat, who is preparing to take a huge shot in cleaning the trash in the ocean.
Here is the website --> https://www.theoceancleanup.com/
I believe the world as one has to take an action and change its habits.
My brother was traveling in Indonesia a few summers back and he told me that a barely saw a trash can in the three weeks being across the country. Indonesia is apparently planning to take an action about this.
As a nature lover, I hope the world will improve, but a single person cannot do it alone.
Plastic bag and bottles should be discontinued. There are people in India that die in landfills while looking for valuables in a mountain of plastic bottles.
Have you watched the documentary A Plastic Ocean? I highly recommend it if not! Absolutely horrific what we are doing to the environment. My biggest intention for 2018 - Cut out plastic from my life entirely!
No, I haven't, I will check it out.
this is an ongoing issues that causes floods in the street, weve experienced it many times and thats the only time we all realized the importance of garbage management.. This is really a worst scenario when we can no longer fish because of this human behavior..
Shit...this is sad....will follow your channel now...
Excellent subject my friend, we must begin to raise awareness about the recycling of our products. I know many of us think that a small bag of garbage does not make a difference, but if we all help, we can start to make a difference.
Gran aporte hermani,un saludo desde venezuela!
This very insightful and educative! ...But whats the way forward? How do we deal with this?
This is just purely sad. Problem is that the bigger part of humanity are just too ignorant and guided by only short time thinking :/
Thank you for raising the awareness though. Resteemed.
This is something not many people talk about and it's a huge issue. I see so many people on campus be so wasteful and it's a shame. You can tell them that it's bad for the environment and they merely don't care because they think it doesn't impact them at all. One day when reality sets in and they realize their mistakes it will be too late. Thanks for raising awareness, keep up the interesting posts.
As a surfer, I hate ocean pollution. I love clean water to surf in and just enjoy. But I grew up in California. The ocean is disgusting. I have always tried to support groups like Surfrider Foundation and other such groups who work very hard to keep our oceans clean.
It’s very sad to see innocent animals suffering because of our waste. This is something we need to fix urgently because we are damaging our ecosystem and the lives of other beings.
The sad thing about is that government all over the world doesn’t do anything about it. Here they talk about pollution, global warming while there is a immediate issue and possibility to fix it at this time being, they just turn their head away.
Great post to keep awareness.
Resteemed!
Great write up, I believe this post goes a long way to making us understand the importance of recycling especially plastics... It's important we look into this...Thanks @themarkymark for this insight.
What a timely post! I have recently started a business which focuses on recycling and trash collection and getting people to be more conscience about the importance of recycling and how easy it truly is!
This is my first time am hearing of great pacific gabbage .very reach in plastic indeed.i think this should call attention of the whole world to enforce a serious law with regard to waste management and recycling .it will go along way to curb unnecessories dumping of the plastic in a water body.notwithstanding ,if me and you realize the potential of plastic recycling it would go a long way as fast as we cannot imagine.that' s remind me to consider engaging in this plastic recycling business.i think i will give it a try this year. Thanks for this insight on plastic recycling business.
https://steemit.com/photography/@jamilkhan/baiturrahman
Great post
It's disgusting what we do to our planet. I try to do all I can to recycle but I think we really just need to stop using so much plastics.
Damn! I didn't know this existed! And two of them? WTF!
Why don't I see documentaries on this and only get that bald guy with the Pawn Shop, Mediums, Ghost Stories, Nazis and all that crap in documentary channels?...
sigh
2? There are much more than 2, these are just the biggest ones.
Two massive ones that is... still I feel like I need to investigate the others now. Maybe Ill be surprised with their dimmensions.
@themarkymark
I sent you 3 sbd to vote this post and you did not vote: https://steemit.com/castellano/@coffefrees/osvaldo-un-gato-con-suerte
the post had 4 days when I sent it to you
This is one of the biggest problems here in the Philippines, proper garbage disposal. There are really areas not focusing on this matter. Thanks for this awareness.
This is truly enlightening. I remember seeing a cartoon some years back; Happy Feet, that had a fat penguin, who considered himself a prophet sent by the gods, with a plastic beverage holder around his neck. This cartoon tried to explore what you wrote about above but it did not do it justice.
in my country, recycling waste is still a vague business plan. Giant conglomerates like Coca Cola have the recycle symbol on their cans but many of my country people do not even read it. Those who are aware, have no where to drop them. Restaurants, bars, hotels, homes too, do not differentiate recyclables from wastes that decompose fast. Most landfills are filled with plastic.
Recently, disposed metal objects and used plastic bottles started gaining attention as certain companies have started buying the metals as scrap and the plastic too. This though is still done in small quantities and what about previous disposals
It is a shame that acquatic life is being endangered due to our inability to manage the resources, we have been given. We can do better than this. We can be better.
Companies who deal with plastics should be held accountable for how their products are being disposed. Governments as well as community leaders should take it upon themselves to throw light on the damage a carelessly tossed plastic bottle can cause the world, parents should teach their children and wards how to properly dispose waste. We can make this world better if we but try.
I am glad to have seen this article. It has got me thinking.
Peace.
This should be shown to everyone daily as a reminder and to keep people from staying ignorant on purpose to avoid guilt/accountability. And to remind those of us who try why we keep trying to clean this planet up.
I get fired up just seeing someone litter, but wow, I had no idea this was going on. I had read about a company working to convert plastic into a fuel similar to diesel. We need a breakthrough like that, so people will want to pick up trash.
It is shameful what we are doing to our own planet. There should be more educative material like yours so people realize how important recycling is.
Ohh no thats really sad , 😢
This is very worrying, and the fact that this plastic pile is far away in the ocean makes us complacent about the problem. Even I, an enthusiastic reciter, did not know about it until five minutes ago. The really worrisome fact is that we always think we have a solution to everything and we can solve any problem if we want to allocate resources. The truth is that this plastic pile, which we created ourselves, has no possibility of dismantling.
What has happened to people and organizations that have made attempts to clean up these great garbage patch zones? Is there any progress?
There are some cool technologies being developed to work on this. There is a lot of manual labor involved in some of the efforts but some of it will be automated. I don't know if it is a problem that will ever be solved. Some example efforts:
Massive Clean up of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to Start Next Year
World's largest ocean cleanup operation one step closer to launch
Great article. Really insightful and the video gave me a great look into the problem. Thanks for sharing this!
nice post! we all have to recycle, but also we have to recycle right!
I have mine personal contest, I collect everyday trash, is a small action, I hope to inspire few friends to do the same... @ale6grande
great post @themarkymark
The shame is the disposable society that we've created for ourselves. Everything from desktop computers and cell phones, to automobile body parts and home appliances, is made lighter and cheaper because of the use of plastic, and where recycle/refurbish plans are not in place, untold tons of plastic pollute the planet's lands and oceans.
I have written about this before. Its a very important issue with grave implications.
I am glad you wrote about it as it needs as much exposure as possible. The only real solution is to stop buying things packaged in plastic....hahaha so yea seems impossible but its not. The TRUTH is there are MANY packaging alternatives that are NOT plastic. The fast food consumer culture needs to grow up and start looking beyond addiction and consumption to the bigger picture.
Best Regards~*~