Rubbish in the Pacific Ocean

[xelasnave]

I have not been turning on the radio or TV with the election and the pending financial colapse but I did today, heard the spending spree has not stopped, interest rates will go up..as if one could not work that out but the most alarming news was about rubbish in the Ocean.

I heard someone saying there is a pile of rubbish in the Pacific Ocean which covers an area larger than Australia... plastics from USA China..everywhere it seemed.. outta sight outta mind but has anyone the drum on this?
alex

[xelasnave]

He said there is no chance of cleaning it up and as it is in international waters so there is no political will...
alex

[Ric]

Hi Alex, I was reading an article about shipping containers that get washed overboard during storms.

They can float in the shipping lanes for months and usually just below the surface and are doing a lot of damage when they collide with the ships propellors.

[Glenhuon (Bill)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

He said there is no chance of cleaning it up and as it is in international waters so there is no political will...
alex

Not really surprised Alex, there is no political will to clean up the fouling in our own nest, far less between the trees.

Bill

[Glenhuon (Bill)]

And they can float around for a long time Ric. I remember 30 odd years ago our lighthouse tender picking up a buoy from Carolina that had floated all the way across the Atlantic to the Western Isles of Scotland, and believe it or not the light was still flashing, all be it several feet below the surface

[xelasnave]

Well I want to know if John or Kevin are going to fund a clean up.
Did not sound very good ... but it gathers in an eddy of the trades winds it seems... Chinas stuff arrives rather fast but the stuff from USA arrives years after it left...
Anyways I see a fund ... a group etc.. a movie the Inconvenient Truth..no thats being used.. I wonder if there is a book yet. But some will make money from talking about it and worrying the rest of us..well I am worried and I have not even seen it.

Maybe a good place to hunt for treasure, plasitic bags full of cash maybe, flushed down the toilet in a drug raid... who wants to join the expedition??

alex
alex

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Look at the mess we make here on Earth, and we are in search of another home Planet! Why? So we can pollute it too!

Humans are a messy species.

[robagar]

I remember reading a very depressing article about this. Plastic rubbish accumulates in the vast stable rotating system of the Central Pacific Gyre, where it stays pretty much forever. Or at least until it's eaten by some poor creature.

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Oce...tch27oct02.htm

[okiscopey (Mike)]

The Atlantic has a similar area called the Sargasso Sea - but it seems to be mainly seaweed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargasso

[JimmyH155]

When I was living up in Gove - that tropical paradise in the Arafura Sea, we saw a lot of dead turtles. Why were they dying? They used to eat plastic bags 'cos they thought they were jellyfish. Another thing. Some people would go camping in their boats, to a deserted beach and religiously put all their rubbish in a garbage bag. On the way home across the bay, they would chuck the bag overboard. What sense is that - and they were all supposed to be intelligent people.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by JimmyH155

When I was living up in Gove - that tropical paradise in the Arafura Sea, we saw a lot of dead turtles. Why were they dying? They used to eat plastic bags 'cos they thought they were jellyfish. Another thing. Some people would go camping in their boats, to a deserted beach and religiously put all their rubbish in a garbage bag. On the way home across the bay, they would chuck the bag overboard. What sense is that - and they were all supposed to be intelligent people.

Only enough intelligence to know what the bag is used for it seems.

I often think if we were as inteligent as we as a species believe we are that instead of leaving rubbish and monuments to dead mens greatness we would be more determined not to leave any sign of our presence... we think we are the head of the food chain but what if there is something out there who feeds on worlds like us... would we be easy to spot or not...

I wonder if future generations having run out of plastic will mine these regions... mmm maybe that is where coal can from in the first place mountains of compressed plastic generated by an earlier species..less intelligent than us.

alex

[Lee]

In 1992, when I was in the Navy - a washing machine on board ship broke down, and couldn't be fixed.... you know where it is now, don't you..... somewhere between Sydney and Wellington!

[CoombellKid]

Originally Posted by Ric

Hi Alex, I was reading an article about shipping containers that get washed overboard during storms.

They can float in the shipping lanes for months and usually just below the surface and are doing a lot of damage when they collide with the ships propellors.

Shipping containers that have washed overboard have been a problem for
many a year. My old man was a sea captain and I remember him complaining
about them when I was a little kid in the early 70's. I've heard some
horrowing stories of lost cargo. Once they were on a 45 degree list coming
around the bottom of NZ and lost half a dozen or so. Then there was a Truck
heading the the Chattam Islands 500miles east of NZ that went over. But
when he was doing the US run the biggest problems weren't the weather but
shipping containers float just below the surface. One could only imagine the
money in product laying at the bottom of the oceans.... and the crud that's
leaching from them. Probably another reason why we see whales and sharks
getting together to heard what fish/food is left toward the coast.

regards,CS

[xelasnave]

Gee when you stop to worry you sure can make a list..... and most of what we have done to this planet has been in probably less than 200 years which is a painfully short period of time in our history and ever a shorter period in the history of life...

It is a big world but can it accomodate our approach???... and the sad thing is we can not do anything about our approaches ..

Global warming if it is hastened by us simply can not be stopped by somehow humans over a decade or two changing their basic self centered ways...under pain of death nothing will change ... every one contributes even those determined not to ...

If there is a God he is sure going to be ticked off when he comes back and sees what we have done to his plants, animals and water.... but I feel the future we head for will be worse than one could ever comptemplate that a unhappy creator would deal out in his anger over our folly.. beauty will die in nature and then in us... beauty is becoming a rare thing where once it was the norm.

What can you do???

I am wringing my hands but I dont think that is going to help.

alex