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Only when there is more plastic than fish in the ocean, we will realize we can't eat plastic

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We are our own worst enemy.

By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean.

A seal is choked by plastic. As it grows, its circulation and breathing will be restricted, as well as its ability to hunt or escape diminished. For each animal we see, there are hundreds we never see to help.

A seal is choked by plastic. As it grows, its circulation and breathing will be restricted, as well as its ability to hunt or escape diminished. For each animal we see, there are hundreds we never see to help.

Highlights

By Marshall Connolly (CALIFORNIA NETWORK)
CALIFORNIA NETWORK (https://www.youtube.com/c/californianetwork)
1/27/2017 (7 years ago)

Published in Green

Keywords: plastic, ocean, fish, trash, garbage, recycling, prize, cost

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- You cannot eat plastic.

Every day, the equivalent of one garbage truck per minute is dumped into the ocean. By 2050, scientists estimate there will be more plastic than fish in the sea.


Only 14 percent of all plastic is ever recycled. And businesses spend $80 billon per year to make new plastics because we don't recycle it. Worst of all, human use of plastics is growing.

It's become obvious that we are filthy and we have misplaced our priorities. We offer prizes for writing poems and flying around the planet in a solar-powered airplane, but we offer no incentive to clean up the oceans. There is no Nobel Prize for environmental cleanup.

We spend billions on stealth aircraft that will allow us to bomb other people by surprise, but we have no fleets to harvest the plastic out of the ocean.

This terrible fact is because we are apathetic. We leave our trash on the beaches. We don't clean up after ourselves and we're too lazy to recycle. When we see other's trash, we say nothing, and we don't pick it up. We shake our heads and hope somebody has a job to clean it up.

Trash piles on shores, then gets washed out to sea. This is a common method of contamination. Plastic is accumulating at the rate of one garbage truck per minute.

Trash piles on shores, then gets washed out to sea. This is a common method of contamination. Plastic is accumulating at the rate of one garbage truck per minute.


All too often that somebody is nobody.

Seabirds die by the tens to hundreds of thousands because they mistake plastic for food, and their bodies can't digest it. The plastic remains in their stomachs, slowly killing them.

The ocean is filled with plastic, even in the most remote locations.

The ocean is filled with plastic, even in the most remote locations.


Fish are likely faring even worse, but there's little way for us to estimate the cost to fish and other wildlife out at sea.

Unless we approach environmental cleanup with the same enthusiasm as war, we will eventually drown in a sea of trash, spread by the greatest enemy of all --ourselves.

Plastic kills sea life, by strangling, choking, and blocking the consumption and digestion of food. Each day thousands of birds and fish starve to death due to plastic.

Plastic kills sea life, by strangling, choking, and blocking the consumption and digestion of food. Each day thousands of birds and fish starve to death due to plastic.


Our failure to recycle plastic costs us $80 billion per year in new plastics alone. There are other, much greater costs which are yet to be fully measured.

Our failure to recycle plastic costs us $80 billion per year in new plastics alone. There are other, much greater costs which are yet to be fully measured.


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