I thought this was an interesting article, so I'm preserving it.

[shanith]

Q: What is the largest rubbish dump in the world?
A: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, off the North East coast of Hawaii

The problem is that it is not a patch, it's an area of ocean the size of a continent, nearly double the size of Texas or the same size as central Europe.

Anything that floats, no matter where it comes from on the north Pacific Rim

Comments

[parrot_knight]

What happens to 'biodegradable' plastics, that we are told are OK to put into landfill?

An internet search rapidly leads to a picture of that dead albatross with the plastic lighter and bottle-tops in its stomach, and a jellyfish travelling around entangled with rubbish - both shocking images.

[shanith]

My understanding of these biodegradable bags is that although the plastic polymers break down, they don't disappear so you are getting just tiny particles of plastic. This is better in someways, but they are not the best solution by a long way - its much better in my view to have a peramanent cotton, hemp, or similar bag instead of relying on the plastic bags which still have to be made using non-renewable sources and require energy to make them for the single use.

Sorry, rant not aimed at you!

*tries to forget the fact that she couldn't squeeze all her shopping into her shoulder bag yesterday and had to use a plastic bag*

[parrot_knight]

Oh, rant away at me by all means. ;) I have occasionally acquired permanent bags - and then never used them, a sign of my not thinking ahead sufficiently. Of course, I remember when I was very small that barely anyone used the plastic bags; my mother used to have a (plastic reinforced) string bag she used, which I remember well. We have let ourselves be trained into bad habits.

[pellegrina]

This is horrible, but not unsuspected :-( I do try to avoid synthetic fibres, excess packaging etc. wherever possible, but it's difficult and far too many people are simply unaware and/or uncaring, and the entire economy seems built on consumer goods obsolescence. For example the lunch sandwich my grandmother gave me for the train yesterday was wrapped in individual quarters in waxed paper, each two quarters in their own plastic baggy, the two baggies inserted in one larger baggy, that in another baggy, and the whole in two plastic carrier bags. The biscuits and the pear also in individual baggies. I was just grateful the napkins were allowed to travel unprotected and the carrier bags were recycled!

[huntingdon]

*copy/paste*

Will pass this on...

Where is it from? The greenpeace site?

[shanith]

Hi, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Following the switch to Outlook I can no longer reply direct from my email notification which means I can really only reply to comments at lunchtimes now :-(

To answer your question - it came from our internal intranet - we have a weekly page on environmental issues. However the author references The Ecologist Magazine and this website: http://www.mindfully.org/

[huntingdon]

Thanks. I'll add that to the information.