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MILAN 2012: BRERA DESIGN DISTRICTThis is totally disgusting. Remember the "continent" made out of garbage, double the size of the United States' landmass, floating around in the Pacific? Well, there are five of them scattered around the world, and you need to see this. Here's a sea turtle of the type found off the coast of Argentina:
[Image: Damien du Toit, Flickr]
One was accidentally captured (in a fishing net we're guessing), here's what was in its stomach:
[Image: Victoria Gonzalez Carman]
Some of those look like rocks, but there are far too many pieces in there that are clearly identifiable as shards of plastic. Our garbage.
A research paper put out by the Global Sea Turtle Network shows this is not a problem specific to the coast of Argentina.
Relief of gastrointestinal obstruction of a green turtle off Melbourne Beach, Florida, resulted in the animal defecating 74 foreign objects over a period of a month, including four types of latex balloons, different types of hard plastic, a piece of carpet-like material, and two 2- to 4-mm tar balls.
Although you don't see much press on the world's floating garbage patches, this serves as a stark reminder that this problem isn't going away anytime soon.
via wired
Comments
I've spent many hours cleaning the riverside in my hometown from exactly these objects. they're everywhere, and it takes a lot of manpower to remove it. so before throwing away your plastic bags after shopping is done, get a pair of gloves and fill the bag to the top.
also gets you to appreciate nature even more
WOW that turtle swallowed a whole ruler???
and now for a serious note. This problem will only go away if we see garbage as something valuable as stated in the cradle2cradle-guidelines.
And it does work. Garbage is money and a well designed product will still be worth something after it's lifecycle. Just make sure it's easily disassembled and it's materials are 'pure'.
I product I worked on is now being put in production. It'll cost about 20$ (in store) and the manufacturer (injection molder) will pay 5$ for every cast-away product that makes it back so he can recycle the materials again and again. And even if these products don't make it to the manufacturer other recycling initiatives will have a blast disassembling it and re-use it's materials. I'm sure in the near future some people will make money harvesting these continents of garbage.
Info on these so called "Trash Continents"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110104151146.htm
IF YOU WANT TO HELP, the Ocean Conservancy leads an International Global Cleanup effort to clean beaches and inland waterways. You can sign up here: http://act.oceanconservancy.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=14117.
And they put out a yearly report based on the previous year's cleanup that will absolutely shock you with the amount of trash they find: http://www.oceanconservancy.org/our-work/marine-debris/international-coastal-cleanup-11.html