apes

When I was a kid, my all-time favorite books to read in the whole entire world were the Barenstein Bears. When my sisters and my brother and I got Barenstein Bears on VHS, that was the best thing that had ever happened to us. We watched it over and over again, and today I can vividly remember my favorite episode. Papa Bear took brother bear fishing, but they kept catching dirty old boots and disgusting trash. Brother bear got very concerned, and went to visit a whale (I think?? That sounds funny) The whale was really sick and could hardly breathe because the water was so polluted. WHen brother bear looked around, trucks were dumping trash into the water uncontrollably. He decided to help, and he got all kinds of people to clean up the lake. Miraculously, the lake became sparkly clean and the whale lived happily ever after.

This story probably makes me sound really lame, but when I read an article called “Plastics in Pacific: Activists survey the mess,” the first thing I thought about was the Bearenstein Bears.  Recently in the Pacific Ocean, Greenpeace activists have been on a ship collecting old toothbrushes, beach toys, golf balls, and all kinds of nasty things from a huge vortex of plastic trash in the water. THis trash threatens sea creatures because they could get tangled in it, eat it, or ride on it. Since plastic doesn’t break down like organic material does, ocean currents and tides have carried trash thousands of miles to an area between Hawaii and the West Coast, called the “swirling vortex.” The swirling vortex was designated as a protected U.S. national monument in June by President Bush. (why would bush want to protect something that’s holding all this trash???)

In a new report, Greenpeace said at least 267 species – including seabirds, turtles, seals, sea lions, whales and fish – are known to have suffered from this trash either by getting tangled in it or digesting it. The report said the debris comes from four main sources: tourism, sewage, fishing, and waste from ships and boats. THis report comes just days after the report about seafood collapsing due to trends in overfishing and pollution!

Here are some other problems with all this trash:

• invasive species (eh, eh??) can be carried thousands of miles by hitching rides on plastic debris.
• Plastic is hazardess to animals that think it’s prey and eat it (organisms who eat the plastic end up starving because their stomachs are filled by there’s no nutrients)
• lost fishing nets and traps can continue to catch fish when they are no longer in use

Apparently, an international agreement called MARPOL is aimed at ending the dumping of plastic debris at sea. But even total enforcement of this agreement wouldn’t eliminate the problem, because most debris orginates on land. I guess we will need a miracle like brother bear to stop all this pollution!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15590510/

photos courtesy of EPA:

http://www.epa.gov/owow/oceans/debris/trash_on_beach.jpg

http://www.epa.gov/owow/oceans/debris/scuba.jpg