Plastic's Not Fantastic

A small part of what we picked up in an hour...© 2009 - Chelle´s Collection

Plastic - like diamonds is forever.

Plastic is killing 100,000 birds, whale, seals and turtles every year. That number is set to rise as the animal decomposes and the plastic continues to live - killing again and again.

This chemical cocktail is also making it´s way into our food chain...

I got together with some friends to help clean a beautiful beach that is popular with surfers.

What I found shocked me. Plastic, so much plastic. There wasn´t any surf so I picked up a copy of The Surfers Path which had a tiny article about plastic, that in turn led me to the wonders of the world wide web.

There is an area in the Pacific Ocean the size of Africa, 10 metres deep in swirling plastic. By the day we are adding to it and it is getting bigger. Every ocean is carrying plastic. In some part it outweighs nature's food by 6:1 so animals have no choice but to eat it. The plastic just becomes smaller and smaller but is still as lethal and still as poisonous

I recycle my plastic. Or so I thought. It would appear that most of this plastic is not recyclable. The bottle can be recycled but the top is much harder. Only the numbers 1,2 & 3 within the arrows can be recycled. (mainly bottles) and even then only once.

Plastic is always only one step away from landfill. And the largest landfill is the ocean. The same ocean we all play in.

Plastic has become so common place we don´t give it a thought. Once you start looking you see it everywhere it will all last forever.

This is not to preach. But I want to show people about this, like me, the people I have told had no idea at the extent of this problem. And it´s one problem we can all help to solve. There are a lot of us! Let's get together and see if we can do something really positive and give back to the ocean.

Please check out the site for videos, info and tips.

www.plasticsnotfantastic.org

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