Plastic Pacific. A Garbage Island the size of Texas.
In recent blog posts and in our Winter 2008 issue, we alluded to a “Texas-sized island of plastic floating in the Pacific ocean.”
Sounds crazy, right? Well, the story was enough to motivate Vice to rent a boat and strike out into the Pacific gyre—the remote location between San Francisco and Hawaii where ocean currents meet—in search of the fabled island. They documented their trip on a blog and in a video series. As Thomas Morton wrote about his trip, “Hope you’re into cancer and sex-reversal!” But seriously, their footage is sobering and definitely worth a look.
Hopefully, as more environmental fairytales are proven true, we’ll see more action to clean up our global act!
TOXIC: Garbage Island 1 of 3
Apr 7, 2008
Come aboard as the VBS crew takes a cruise to the Northern Gyre in the Pacific Ocean, a spot where currents spin and cycle, churning up tons of plastic into a giant pool of chemical soup, flecked with bits and whole chunks of refuse that cannot biodegrade.
Incorrect source, offensive, or found a typo? Or do you want to write for Elephant?
Well, there’s been a number of stories on this story, previously–from far more reputable sources than VICE. Just google it, google it, just google it a little bit.
[...] So what’s the problem with Discover Card’s new biodegradable PVC credit card? It’s not biodegradable—just ’cause something breaks down into little bits don’t mean it’s compostable—after all, little bits of plastic are what’s filling the bellies of Pacific fish, that we then eat. [...]
[...] the verge of a monumental crisis, now. Vast areas in our world’s oceans are dead zones, with more plastic than plankton. On our current course a collapse of all ocean life is anticipated by 2048. Polar bears in [...]