Eco warrior's Pacific journey shows how 'dumb plastic' is killing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/11/plastiki-rothschild-plastic-bottle-catamaran

"The ocean's fragility they witnessed in the place where much of the world's discarded plastic ends up, the "eastern garbage patch". This, the focus of their voyage, is a floating "continent" of debris. Nothing that the crew had read in advance could prepare them for what they found navigating an area twice as large as the North Sea. "You don't see it at first," De Rothschild says. "But when you get into the sea, and under the water, you realise that it is all like a soup, millions and millions of tiny fragments of plastic, suspended in the water. It is mostly microscopic, but once your eye adjusts you start to see the reflectiveness of some of the larger pieces. The red fragments stand out most clearly."

That's why just about every plastic bottle that was ever made still exists," De Rothschild says….. according to the UN Environment Programme, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, and more than 100,000 marine mammals. Back in 2006, the UN concluded that . Since then the problem has only grown. "One of the difficulties in conveying it to people," De Rothschild says, "is that you can't photograph it, the flecks are too small

"When you start reading about 80% of the world's fish stocks being gone, it's hard to believe," De Rothschild says. "But then you come out here."

At Christmas Island, where much of the food arrives in American packaging, "popsicle bags are a scourge". On Samoa, villages compete over recycling plans, but as soon as villagers were out of their backyard De Rothschild watched young and old throwing plastic bottles into the sea.

It's like a disease," he says. "But we have to believe the argument can be won. Getting rid of dumb plastic, bags in particular, could be a very simple piece of legislation; making supermarkets use reusables is not so hard."

The crew's website is full of stories of people "doing their own Plastiki", pledging to eliminate plastic bottles from their school or workplace, or creating a zero waste policy. "

our future
Beyond This Horizon

water - from the tap
milk -> from cartons
beverages -> from fruits
beverage containers -> aluminum or stainless steel
lunch -> from home
napkins -> cloth
utensils -> non-disposable
bags -> canvas - no more plastic shopping bags
food storage -> glass

and
solar cars
got to be