Debris Turns Hawaiian Beach To Plastic.

[Iknimaya]

This is disgusting.

BBC News - Ocean debris turning Hawaiian beach 'into plastic'

[zongtseng]

This is ridiculous, and not a surprise. This is the kind of environmental thing everyone should be able to get behind doing something about. Global warming is debatable, coating the planet in plastic and garbage being a bad thing is not debatable. We suck.

[PunkMaister]

Hasn't anybody being able to track down where all that crap is coming from because that amount is just highly irregular and points that somewhere they are dumping that plastic and is being carried by the currents all the way to Hawaii.

[Tsyal Makto]

Originally Posted by zongtseng

This is ridiculous, and not a surprise. This is the kind of environmental thing everyone should be able to get behind doing something about. Global warming is debatable, coating the planet in plastic and garbage being a bad thing is not debatable. We suck.

Exactly. People can argue that climate change is a natural phenomenon, but no one in their right mind can claim that the Earth naturally grew it's own garbage.

Originally Posted by PunkMaister

Hasn't anybody being able to track down where all that crap is coming from because that amount is just highly irregular and points that somewhere they are dumping that plastic and is being carried by the currents all the way to Hawaii.

It's probably coming from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch located in the North Pacific gyre, like the article says. It's anywhere from the a few hundred to a few thousand miles wide.

[Fkeu'itan]

This is simply awful. I have seen it with our very own coastline to a smaller degree.

Almost every year we go down to the same national park and it has miles of white sand beaches, also without fail every single year there is tons of plastic, nets, sometimes entire metal barrels washed ashore. It infuriates me to see such beautiful coastline that I hold so close to my heart marred by blind, mindless ignorance.

[PunkMaister]

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

Exactly. People can argue that climate change is a natural phenomenon, but no one in their right mind can claim that the Earth naturally grew it's own garbage.



It's probably coming from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch located in the North Pacific gyre, like the article says. It's anywhere from the a few hundred to a few thousand miles wide.

It still does not explain the source of all that material some articles I've searched blame cruise ships! Is inconceivable that the Cruise ship industry is so callously destroying the environment that is the source of their income in the first place.

I've read that steps are being taken such as this research and cleanup effort.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by zongtseng

This is ridiculous, and not a surprise. This is the kind of environmental thing everyone should be able to get behind doing something about. Global warming is debatable, coating the planet in plastic and garbage being a bad thing is not debatable. We suck.

This. Exactly this. This is, to me, what's important. Yet this gets so little attention too, with all the hysteria over dubious claims made about an unavoidable fact of Earth's nature. Humans need to realise that there are much more important things to worry about.

[Grif]

This is ridiculous. You know I think I know why a lot of people really want to be a Na'vi, they, or my precisely, we want to distance ourselves from humanity because of all the horrible stuff humans have done.

[PunkMaister]

Originally Posted by Grif

This is ridiculous. You know I think I know why a lot of people really want to be a Na'vi, they, or my precisely, we want to distance ourselves from humanity because of all the horrible stuff humans have done.

Why do we never see Al Gore raging over this? Because it doesn't fit his political agenda that is better served through expanding the sphere of government with the excuse of Global warming that's why.

The main sources where this garbage ends up in the oceans obviously especifically the Pacific ocean need to be identified and I'm certain it could be done as well as conducting cleanup and materials reclamation efforts.

[Tsyal Makto]

Originally Posted by PunkMaister

The main sources where this garbage ends up in the oceans obviously especifically the Pacific ocean need to be identified and I'm certain it could be done as well as conducting cleanup and materials reclamation efforts.

It is not likely one source in particular, the garbage patch is just building up over time from the small amounts of trash the gyre draws in. Most of the trash probably comes from the North America (on the east side of the gyre) and East Asia (on the west side of the gyre). My guess is that most of it is coming from the US, Japan, and China, being the three largest/most industrialized countries on the gyre.

[rapunzel77]

UGH, this is awful. I agree that this is something that everyone can get behind. Its terrible that we see so much trash on our beaches and the side of the roads, etc. It definitely will need a lot of clean up.