SOS: President Trump champions bill, saying its time to Save our Seas

Communities Digital News ^ | Oct 11, 2018 | Jacquie Kubin

[E. Pluribus Unum]

WASHINGTON: Something should have been done by previous administrations, but they ignored it. The problem of plastic in our oceans has been left to fester to unmanageable effect. Saying that over eight millions tons of garbage, plastic, is dumped into our oceans, the President says Save our Seas is an effort to clean the plastic out. No other political leader, not in the U.S. or any other country, is willing to stand up for the oceans.

The Save Our Seas Act, an important bill which reauthorizes and amends the Marine Debris Act, will act to promote international action to reduce marine debris. We can only hope this is more than a bill and that President Trump will get behind this important effort to clean our environment, not just the oceans, of plastic.

Millions of tons of single-use plastic in the environment It is staggering to realize that more than two million tons of single-use (use once and throw away) plastic soft drinks bottles are sold each year. The number of those bottles made from recycled materials, about 6.6%, is very limited. A Greenpeace survey found that five of six global soft drinks firms sold single-use plastic bottles. These numbers do not include data from the Coca-Cola Co., who declined to provide researchers with their plastic usage data.

Single-use drinks bottles are a visible part of the problem of plastics pollution in the world’s oceans. Single-use drink bottles are the most common type of plastic packaging found washed up on shorelines globally, Greenpeace tells the Guardian newspaper.

All those millions of tons of plastics swirling around in the South Pacific Gyre and the oceans will take centuries to break down. In the process of that plastic breaking down, smaller particulates are broken down, ingested by sea and bird life.

[JimRed]

...plastic in warm ocean water can degrade in as little as a year."

How it degrades is part of the long term problem. Some plastics (I read somewhere) simply break down into smaller and smaller particles. Filter feeders at the bottom of the food chain (some fish like Menhaden and Anchovies) ingest it and where there is too much of it they can starve to death with full bellies.

[Aliska]

I suspected that. And we can only put out food grade plastic and cans for now. No styrofoam. Bulk waste on certain days; most of that ends up in the landfill.

City composting was a good idea until I bought some and got this nasty white clover that spread like crazy, extremely tough. Had to resort to 2-4-D for that but am done with it.

So I buy some wildflower seeds from a place in MN for just a few things. I got this horrid grass, thick leaves. And awful weeds never seen before around here. I think it was the place in MN.

Now am afraid to transplant any of my plants to another location to save them.

I don't have the answer, just don't want them in the oceans, rivers and waterways. Or landfills.

Of course, I don't want to give up the convenience and safety (won't shatter like glass) of some of them.

And I don't want the government telling us how to be responsible about them.

Unintended consequences and still nuclear waste to be disposed of. I don't have that, of course, but it's an issue throughout the world now.

Still it's no excuse for not doing our part in cleaning up after ourselves as best we can.