What I Learned Today

Did you know that there’s a gigantic concentration of trash that’s swirling around between California and Hawaii? The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is a stunning conglomeration of trash that is now reputed to cover an area twice the size of Texas, or possibly three times the size of France. Appalling!

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Fascinating video about how they measure the volume of trash:

I recently listened to another fascinating episode of the “Science Vs” podcast titled “Plastics: The Final Straw?”. The tale of where our plastics go and what havoc they wreak is not for the faint-hearted. The show also discusses a question that had puzzled me a bit – how could that much plastic possibly end up in the ocean? Apparently, much of it is trash that folks drop in a street gutter, and then washes into a storm drain, which may at times bypass wastewater treatment (or be in a community that lacks it) and get expelled directly into the ocean.

There are efforts underway to try to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, thankfully. But I couldn’t get the idea of that trash out of my mind. And so on my next evening walk, I took a leftover grocery bag and my grabber tool with me:

(This isn’t my exact tool but you get the idea.)

And as I walked, I used it to pick up any trash I found on the street and put it in my bag. In half an hour of walking, I filled the bag TWICE! (I was able to dump it halfway through in an actual garbage can.) Again, appalling!

It was also fascinating to see what kind of trash was on the street. Our streets are actually quite clean, with weekly street sweepers coming through. I found the densest concentration of trash when I passed near the middle school :( And by far, overall, the biggest trash constituent was plastics. I collected a paper plate, a crushed soda can, and some napkins, but the huge majority was plastic cups, lids, straws, chip bags, food wrappers, etc. (I also found part of a pair of novelty sunglasses (plastic) and a pencil (not plastic).) In many cases, the items were near to or partly sucked into a storm drain already. The whole time, all I could think of was that mountain of trash in the ocean, and how unnecessary and avoidable it is.

But now, at least, I can tidy up the streets on my way to tidy up the library shelves. :)