There is an island off the coast of California, known as Gilligan’s Island, that is made up of nearly 80 percent used and discarded plastic bags as well as other plastic garbage, that is twice the size of Texas and still growing! The Los Angeles Times calls this entire plastic bag island "an environmental atrocity” and I agree with that statement completely.
Called Gilligan’s Island in reference to the sitcom from the sixties, the reality is that this is no laughing matter. Scientifically it is called The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or The Pacific Trash Vortex, as it swirls around almost halfway between the United States and Japan, literally out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is quickly becoming an environmental hazard of huge proportions.
As the plastic slowly begins to degrade, bits and pieces are making its way into the food chain as aquatic life finds it hard to distinguish this garbage from food. Sea turtles, birds and others mistake this stuff as being edible, as an example, turtles think floating plastic bags are jellyfish and eat them, with the result that the plastic does not digest nor does it get passed as waste, literally gumming up the works and killing the unfortunate creature that ingested it.
This plastic garbage floats just beneath the surface and cannot be detected from the air or by satellite, but it there as sure as the water is there. The sun breaks down these plastics through photodegradation, causing the base chemical polymers to be released directly into the water. As a result, not only do the larger pieces of ingested plastic have the potential to kill anything that eats them, the broken down chemicals that are leaching into the water make the whole area poisonous.
As horrible as all this sounds, nothing is being done about it. Research into disposal or recycling has commenced, but there is no word on any facts, figures or solutions to clean up Gilligan’s Island. It just sits out there in the middle of the Pacific, swirling around and polluting everything it touches or that touches it.
Anyone who has been reading Because Action knows that plastic bags and bottles are the bane of my existence. We don’t need them, there is no reason to have them, and except for critical medical situations, they should be banished, outlawed and barred from use. And Because Action speaks louder than words, I have long since given up plastic use for the sake of convenience, and I have not lost one minute of sleep over that decision.
