Plastic Waste

Plastic is a wonderful material. It's waterproof, durable, and can perform an amazing variety of functions.

But plastic has also become a huge problem.

• Plastic does not biodegrade. It is bio inert. It is embrittled by the sun.
• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (North Pacific Ocean Gyre) is a swirling mass of small plastic debris twice the size of Texas and weighing about 300 million pounds. It is composed of entire plastic items (toothbrushes, pens, soothers) and plastic that has broken into smaller pieces that don't decompose. In the surface of the Pacific Ocean, plastic outweighs plankton. Read more
• 27% percent of the total of the total of what is found in the North Pacific Ocean Gyre is plastic film like that used in packaging. There is no code for knowing what kind of plastic there is. There is no infastructure for recycling it.
• It's an irony that a product that is meant to last forever, is used for seconds and then tossed.

Charles Moore, scientist, Plastic Soup for the Soul

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch   Good Morning America  4 min.
Charles Moore: Sailing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch  Ted Talks 7 min.
 The World's Biggest Garbage Dump   7 min.   
Dirty Oceans, The Pacific Garbage Patch  Today Show, NBC News  3 min
Plastic Soup for the Soul   Plomomedia  3 min.
The Majestic Plastic Bag: A Mockumentary  4 min.