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the great pacific garbage patch

Your co-worker is nuts. It isn't an "island of garbage." It's an area where you'll see trash floating by fairly regularly. That's all.

You'll see more trash floating by taking a walk out Berkeley pier.
 
Ever wonder why you don't actually see pictures of the actual "garbage patch"?
 
now the great pacific cabbage patch, that would be terrifying.

cabbage-patch.gif
 
Here's a little video presentation about it.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0d1_1236527474&c=1

My, those samples and examples look horrible, don't they? But note one thing...the jars of samples are taken by dragging them for a mile through the water. If they just took a dip sample you wouldn't have any where close to the concentration that you could parade around and talk about how terrible it is.

Obviously it isn't that great that there is so much stuff out there, but it's just more of the typical ecoterrorist distortion of the facts attempting to cause hysteria.
 
sn0w1337 said:
i've been trying to find pics for a half hour now, i'm beginning to think it's a myth.
Click to expand...

about 5 minutes looking at the links you posted, particularly this pic from the treehugger link
great%20pacific%20garbage%20patch-jj-001.jpg


is a pretty good indication that there is quite a bit of exaggeration to the "island of garbage" claim. i'm pretty sure that if there were solid... anything that close to hawaii it would already have condos on it
 
Why does it have to be a walkable island of plastic at one extreme... or a total hippie bullshit at another?

I have started to reduce my personal impact on plastic waste based on some of the similar info I have seen recently. I am not totally changing my lifestyle... I am not planning on tree-sitting anytime in my life... but I am changing some bits of my lifestyle that can help here and there.

It is not hard to understand that every little bit helps... and then to do the little bit that you can here and there to reduce your negative impact on the environment.
 
There is a fantastic photo book that examines the ubiquitous stackable plastic chair. From swamps in the amazon to the desert.
 
There is an area out there where the currents swaft all of the crap together. I've seen some footage taken out there that a co-worker of mine took and it's pretty nasty. It's Definitely a "not my problem" problem.
 
This is a short documentary about the research vessel "Algalita" and what Chrles Moore and his crew have found in the North Pacific Gyre. They are hardly a bunch of damn dirty hippies....kinda long but really interesting. Here is the link to their website www.algalita.org

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What I don't understand is how people think that humans either aren't or can't fuck up the planet. Maybe that giant gyre of small plastic particulates(we're talking small particles) is the reason the Salmon are just about gone Tuna are declining(anchovies and sardines aren't doing so hot either). Plastic debris has been found to kill the smaller filter feeders that make up the basis of the food chain.

On the otherhand Jellyfish seem to be doing well.

Hope you like them...
 
07chuck said:
What I don't understand is how people think that humans either aren't or can't fuck up the planet. Maybe that giant gyre of small plastic particulates(we're talking small particles) is the reason the Salmon are just about gone Tuna are declining(anchovies and sardines aren't doing so hot either). Plastic debris has been found to kill the smaller filter feeders that make up the basis of the food chain.

On the otherhand Jellyfish seem to be doing well.

Hope you like them...
Click to expand...

I think fish population crashes are attributable to a more direct cause -- over fishing. Not saying that plastic in the ocean is a good thing...
 
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