« Previous topic | Next topic »  
Topic Locked  
 First unread post  | 69 posts | 
by SantaFeJoe on Thu Sep 11, 2014 9:13 pm
User avatar
SantaFeJoe
Forum Contributor
Posts: 8622
Joined: 28 Jan 2012
Location: Somewhere Out In The Wilds
In E.J.s thread on the Laysan duck, Roberta brought up the plight of the Laysan Albatross. In researching the subject, I came across some very graphic and alarming information on the damage that plastic is doing to bird life and other living creatures."Although Midway Island is a sanctuary to thousands of albatrosses, the Laysan Albatross is an endangered species. "Up to 40% of chicks die each year with stomachs full of plastic."   Here are some links for you:

http://www.marine-conservation.org/medi ... midway.htm

http://graphics.latimes.com/altered-oceans/                             Check out part 4

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midw ... 13%2018x24

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#about

http://www.midwayjourney.com/

http://www.treehugger.com/ocean-conserv ... rally.html

https://www.google.com/search?q=midway+ ... d=0CDoQ7Ak

The last one shows the birds, including the Laysan duck and albatross caught up in plastic or worse (mostly dead!)!!! It is something I was totally unaware of and makes me hate plastic containers, especially water bottles, even more! Of course, it's not the fault of the plastic, but rather the fault of humans. IT IS A VERY IMPORTANT SUBJECT TO VIEW FOR ANYONE WHO CARES ABOUT THE EARTH!!!!!! PLEASE READ!


Joe
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.  -Pablo Picasso
Topic Locked  

by E.J. Peiker on Thu Sep 11, 2014 9:53 pm
User avatar
E.J. Peiker
Senior Technical Editor
Posts: 86761
Joined: 16 Aug 2003
Location: Arizona
Member #:00002
Most people don't even know about the great Pacific garbage patch, which is largely responsible for this and we add acres to it every month :(
Topic Locked  

by neverspook on Fri Sep 12, 2014 1:06 am
neverspook
Forum Contributor
Posts: 1228
Joined: 14 Jan 2006
A very important issue. Please check out my blog post about this which includes some simple things you can do to help address this problem. http://neverspook.com/subsites/field.ht ... lIngestion (My site does not work on mobile devices.)

Because we ARE the problem here. Especially egregious is all that single-use plastic that gets thrown away after a few minutes of use, or hours or days at best. Plastic grocery bags and bottled water are among the worst and are just so wasteful and inexcusable given how deadly plastic is to so much wildlife, including albatrosses. Why not take a cloth bag to the store and fill a stainless water bottle with tap water to take with you? (Much bottled watered is just city tap water anyway that has been put into bottles and sold to you when could have it for free by just turning on the faucet.)

All this unnecessary throwaway plastic crap kills albatrosses by the tens of thousands.

Adult albatrosses foraging at sea ingest everything from bottle caps to cigarette lighters and then feed them to their chicks. Lighters look a lot like yummy squids. Flying fish lay their tasty eggs on floating plastic trash and these eggs are a staple of albatross diets. Chicks fed enough plastic slowly die painful deaths from starvation, dehydration, toxicity, perforation of their digestive tracks.

Most of the plastic that ends up killing albatrosses is NOT dumped at sea by ships etc, but originates from land-based sources. That means YOUR water bottle or YOUR toothbrush or YOUR plastic bag could well end up in the stomach of an albatross chick. This lethal ingestion kills tens of thousands of baby albatross every year as well as a million other seabirds, sea turtles, marine mammals and other creatures. Something sobering to think about when you choose the brief convenience of a plastic bag over taking a cloth one with you to the store.

This albatross death by plastic really saddens me because albatrosses are truly remarkable birds. They fly effortlessly, logging as many as a million kilometers in their lifetimes. They can live for 60 or more years and they mate for life. After spending months far away at sea without ever coming to land, at the start of the nesting season mated pairs meet up again on the same tiny oceanic island dot of land and at the same little spot on that dot that is their claimed nest site. Their courtship dances are complex and compelling with each pair developing its own unique choreography.

They lay only a single egg and both parents raise the solitary chick. This takes many months and involves numerous very long foraging flights at sea. Albatrosses nesting on Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands can fly as far as the coast of British Columbia and beyond on a single foraging trip before returning to Midway to feed their offspring. They invest so much in that one chick and then our thoughtless and wasteful use of plastic crap robs these babies of their lives.

Check out Chris Jordan's images and the Midway Journey links Joe has posted above. These show dead and dying baby albatrosses killed by plastic. It will break your heart.

And so much of the plastic trash we generate is from unnecessary single-use items. Sure, that plastic sandwich wrap and throwaway cutlery and plastic grocery bag may be convenient. But they are not necessary. The lives of countless albatross babies is worth far more than the momentary convenience we get from using throwaway plastic crap so much of the time.

After visiting Midway and seeing the effects of plastic for myself, I have come to detest plastic and avoid it whenever possible and to pick it up when I see it on the ground. It is the very least I can do.

Roberta Olenick
www.neverspook.com
Topic Locked  

by SantaFeJoe on Fri Sep 12, 2014 8:39 am
User avatar
SantaFeJoe
Forum Contributor
Posts: 8622
Joined: 28 Jan 2012
Location: Somewhere Out In The Wilds
neverspook wrote:A very important issue. Please check out my blog post about this which includes some simple things you can do to help address this problem. http://neverspook.com/subsites/field.ht ... lIngestion  (My site does not work on mobile devices.)

Because we ARE the problem here. Especially egregious is all that single-use plastic that gets thrown away after a few minutes of use, or hours or days at best. Plastic grocery bags and bottled water are among the worst and are just so wasteful and inexcusable given how deadly plastic is to so much wildlife, including albatrosses. Why not take a cloth bag to the store and fill a stainless water bottle with tap water to take with you? (Much bottled watered is just city tap water anyway that has been put into bottles and sold to you when could have it for free by just turning on the faucet.)

All this unnecessary throwaway plastic crap kills albatrosses by the tens of thousands.

Adult albatrosses foraging at sea ingest everything from bottle caps to cigarette lighters and then feed them to their chicks. Lighters look a lot like yummy squids. 

Most of the plastic that ends up killing albatrosses is NOT dumped at sea by ships etc, but originates from land-based sources. That means YOUR water bottle or YOUR toothbrush or YOUR plastic bag could well end up in the stomach of an albatross chick. This lethal ingestion kills tens of thousands of baby albatross every year as well as a million other seabirds, sea turtles, marine mammals and other creatures. Something sobering to think about when you choose the brief convenience of a plastic bag over taking a cloth one with you to the store.

And so much of the plastic trash we generate is from unnecessary single-use items. Sure, that plastic sandwich wrap and throwaway cutlery and plastic grocery bag may be convenient. But they are not necessary. The lives of countless albatross babies is worth far more than the momentary convenience we get from using throwaway plastic crap so much of the time.
Roberta Olenick
www.neverspook.com
Santa Fe has banned the use of plastic bags by all stores, including Walmart, Target, Kohls,etc., with an exception for bagging meats and vegetables. At first, I was a bit (actually very) annoyed to have them taken away because I always found secondary uses for them (e.g., they made good trash can liners). Now, after reading the damages caused in ways I never knew about,  I'm glad they are banned. I have always hated plastic water bottles and have tried to discourage my wife from drinking bottled water, but to no avail. We do have a recycling program here and they do end up in the recycling bin, but the water is often just overpriced tap water anyway, as Roberta pointed out. I was amazed when I saw the pictures that included so many cigarette lighters and bottle caps in the remains of the albatrosses. This whole revelation about how bad the plastic situation really is, has flipped a switch for me. I've never given it much thought before now. Seeing the Laysan duck tangled up in a plastic six-pack holder makes me realize that they are quite a danger to the animals, as well. I hope that others will see the problem clearly from the images in this link, and give this some thought to it in their daily lives!!!!!  :

https://www.google.com/search?q=midway+ ... d=0CDoQ7Ak

Joe
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.  -Pablo Picasso
Topic Locked  

by Royce Howland on Fri Sep 12, 2014 9:37 am
User avatar
Royce Howland
Forum Contributor
Posts: 11719
Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Member #:00460
I too would strongly urge everybody to be informed about this particular issue of plastic waste, the giant garbage rafts in the ocean, and the impact it is having. There are so many seemingly insurmountable conservation challenges that our planet is facing -- but this issue of plastic is one that we can control, both individually and collectively. Stop using all the plastics you can avoid, advocate with the places you shop to minimize their use, talk to your local municipalities to enact some bans on particularly unnecessary single-use plastics (bags, bottles, straws, stir-sticks, excessive packaging, etc.), and reuse or properly recycle any plastics that you are still stuck with.

Some plastics are essential, and others perhaps have become so convenient / cost-effective that we don't have great replacements for them. But we're drastically overkilling the throw-away plastic uses for sure. It's not just the albatross and other animals -- in fact we're all slowly choking to death on plastic, and most don't even realize it.

Roberta and I have written about Chris Jordan's work here before, including his documentation of what's been happening on Midway. When I first saw Chris Jordan's work, it hit me almost physically. I'm far from perfect and have personal room to improve, but I'm trying to deal with this plastic waste issue as a special concern in my own daily actions towards conservation.

Here's another view of how our (mainly plastic) garbage is hitting the ocean:
http://www.shorelinecleanup.ca

In the Canadian shoreline cleanup for Fall of 2013, here's the ranking of the top dozen garbage items collected along our shorelines; most of it is plastic. (Looks like another reason to quit smoking, too.)

Code: Select all

1   Cigarettes/Cigarette Filters   310,994
2   Food Wrappers                   81,971
3   Bottle Caps (Plastic)           32,892
4   Beverage Bottles (Plastic)      32,405
5   Beverage Cans                   25,867
6   Straws, Stirrers                23,528
7   Other Plastic Bags              22,012
8   Bottle Caps (Metal)             21,871
9   Other Plastic, Foam Packaging   19,634
10  Grocery Bags (Plastic)          18,189
11  Lids (Plastic)                  16,008
12  Construction Materials          15,965
Royce Howland
Topic Locked  

by E.J. Peiker on Fri Sep 12, 2014 11:01 am
User avatar
E.J. Peiker
Senior Technical Editor
Posts: 86761
Joined: 16 Aug 2003
Location: Arizona
Member #:00002
Here is a picture of the stuff a handful of us picked up on a single relatively small beach on Sand Island, Midway Atoll.  While the big stuff is ugly, it's not the dangerous stuff to the birds, at least not until it breaks up.  It's all the small plastic pieces that are in the trash bags...
Image
Image
Topic Locked  

by Royce Howland on Fri Sep 12, 2014 11:13 am
User avatar
Royce Howland
Forum Contributor
Posts: 11719
Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Member #:00460
Yes, agreed. Small plastic pieces and in fact "micro plastic" waste -- tiny chips of plastic that have broken down to the size where the eye can hardly see them -- are entering the waterways, oceans and therefore the food chain of animals and humans. I think this will be an even more serious problem than the big plastic items which are easily seen and therefore more easily cleaned up.
Royce Howland
Topic Locked  

by neverspook on Fri Sep 12, 2014 1:51 pm
neverspook
Forum Contributor
Posts: 1228
Joined: 14 Jan 2006
Great comments and information here from everyone.

As for small bits of plastic, as I mentioned in the Laysan duck thread, something I never knew about until recently and was SHOCKED to learn is that some soaps, shampoos and toothpastes use little tiny beads of plastic as abrasive agents and so this plastic is designed to INTENTIONALLY be washed down the drain into waterways (which all eventually lead to the ocean). So buying products without this plastic is an easy step to take. (Ground peach pits work just as well and are benign - some products use these instead of plastic beads.) Of course these beads would not really affect albatrosses directly, but they do get eaten by smaller organisms and then bio-accumulate up the food chain, including into the seafood people eat. Look at the ingredient list of your personal products. If you see polyethylene or polypropylene, don't buy it because it contains plastic beads. More info here http://myplasticfreelife.com/2007/07/fl ... own-drain/ and here http://5gyres.org/posts/2012/08/20/the_ ... h_plastic/

The other bad thing about plastic is that it concentrates toxins like PCBs and DDT so animals that ingest plastic ingest these poisons as well. And so on up the food chain to people. So plankton eat these little beads, fish and shellfish eat the plankton and well, you know the rest.

Big plastic is definitely easier to clean up. But it can still be dangerous - ropes entangling whales and seals for example.

Some more links I have found useful on this topic of plastic pollution, including organizations you can get involved with that are addressing this:

http://www.tedxkelowna.com/speakers/2012/jan-vozenilek/

http://plasticpollutioncoalition.org/

http://5gyres.org/

http://www.surfrider.org/programs/entry ... e-plastics

http://www.algalita.org/

http://stopplasticpollution.org/

http://stopplasticpollution.org/

As Royce says, it is not really that hard to reduce our personal plastic use. I just get in the habit of asking for "no straw" when I order a beverage at a restaurant. I have a nice stainless steel water bottle and Vancouver has great tap water. (Stainless is much healthier to drink from than plastic anyway.) I take my own spoon and fork with me when I eat at places like Whole Foods and I always use the real dishes rather than the takeout. (Always irks me to see people sitting at the tables there and eating from takeout containers when they are not taking out!) Always ask for real cups at the coffee place. Starbucks here automatically gives you a throwawy cup unless you ask. And I even have a bamboo toothbrush. All those sorts of things just start to come automatically once you start thinking about the issue.

As Royce says, if you can't avoid plastic, recycle it or dispose of it carefully. BUT plastic is not truly recycled the same way glass or metal is. Plastic is always downcycled to a lower grade plastic rather than recycled back into basically the original material the way glass or aluminum can be. So while recycling plastic is better than tossing it, it does not reduce the demand for virgin plastic the way recycling glass reduces demand for virgin glass etc. Only reducing plastic use can do that.

I used to be so good about all my fleece made from recycled pop bottles until I read this http://news.discovery.com/earth/global- ... 111024.htm
Wash your fleece and it sheds bits of plastic into the wash and down the drain. Very bad.

Plastic is a big ubiquitous problem!

I HATE PLASTIC!

Roberta Olenick
www.neverspook.com
Topic Locked  

by SantaFeJoe on Fri Sep 12, 2014 6:07 pm
User avatar
SantaFeJoe
Forum Contributor
Posts: 8622
Joined: 28 Jan 2012
Location: Somewhere Out In The Wilds
Out of curiosity E.J. or Roberta, what did you do with the floats and other plastic you gathered? Did you remove it from the island or how was it disposed of? I'm sure it is a very costly proposition to clean the island and remove the debris. I even saw a post somewhere that suggested using an Australian trawler to gather floating debris and dispose of it, but I can't imagine who would be willing to pay for it, even though it is created by everyone!!!

Joe
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.  -Pablo Picasso
Topic Locked  

by neverspook on Sat Sep 13, 2014 1:36 am
neverspook
Forum Contributor
Posts: 1228
Joined: 14 Jan 2006
As I recall - EJ might know more details - the plastic we collected was added to a pile of other plastic debris, old nets etc etc that Midway staff collect as necessary to protect the refuge and its wildlife. Eventually and periodically this stuff gets taken off the Atoll and disposed of properly. I imagine they take it off by ship rather than flying it out to Honolulu, but am not certain of that.

Roberta Olenick
www.neverspook.com
Topic Locked  

by SantaFeJoe on Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:27 am
User avatar
SantaFeJoe
Forum Contributor
Posts: 8622
Joined: 28 Jan 2012
Location: Somewhere Out In The Wilds
Thanks, Roberta! I can't imagine the logistics involved to remove debris from a place like this, nor the cost. The worst part about it is that there is no end to it! I can't envision any way to safely dispose of it locally either on a small place like Midway. Even here in New Mexico, plastics and other "recyclables" sometimes end up in the landfills, even though they are supposed to be recycled by the cities and we are paying for it. Recently, the landfill in Albuquerque had to be dug up to salvage materials at a place where the "recycled" items ended up after being picked up for recycling!!! If I remember correctly, the same thing happened in Santa Fe. I can't find links to these situations, but the one in ABQ was on the news. The problem with recycling certain colors of glass has come up, too. Hopefully, things will become more efficient soon. Here's a couple of links I found:

http://krqe.com/2014/05/21/santa-fes-di ... recycling/

http://www.npaper-wehaa.com/santa-fe-re ... le=2294782

Joe
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.  -Pablo Picasso
Topic Locked  

by E.J. Peiker on Sat Sep 13, 2014 12:26 pm
User avatar
E.J. Peiker
Senior Technical Editor
Posts: 86761
Joined: 16 Aug 2003
Location: Arizona
Member #:00002
neverspook wrote:As I recall - EJ might know more details - the plastic we collected was added to a pile of other plastic debris, old nets etc etc that Midway staff collect as necessary to protect the refuge and its wildlife. Eventually and periodically this stuff gets taken off the Atoll and disposed of properly. I imagine they take it off by ship rather than flying it out to Honolulu, but am not certain of that.

Roberta Olenick
www.neverspook.com
There was a whole large area near the ship dock that contained pallets of collected garbage that we added to.
Topic Locked  

by SantaFeJoe on Sat Sep 13, 2014 1:34 pm
User avatar
SantaFeJoe
Forum Contributor
Posts: 8622
Joined: 28 Jan 2012
Location: Somewhere Out In The Wilds
Thanks, E.J.!

Joe
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.  -Pablo Picasso
Topic Locked  

by E.J. Peiker on Sat Sep 13, 2014 6:36 pm
User avatar
E.J. Peiker
Senior Technical Editor
Posts: 86761
Joined: 16 Aug 2003
Location: Arizona
Member #:00002
I have more of a recollection of all of the places on the island and the overall geography because I was one of the two drivers for the week. Joe Van Os was the other one.
Topic Locked  

by neverspook on Sat Sep 13, 2014 6:41 pm
neverspook
Forum Contributor
Posts: 1228
Joined: 14 Jan 2006
Very gracious of you to let me off the hook that way, EJ. I am actually rather directionally challenged. :)

Roberta Olenick
www.neverspook.com
Topic Locked  

by Blck-shouldered Kite on Fri Sep 19, 2014 8:02 am
Blck-shouldered Kite
Forum Contributor
Posts: 2669
Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Location: Maine
Chilling!

Joe:

Thanks, I have taken a couple of those links and added them to my group mailings.....most of the folks do not have a clue....just because they are not paying attention, or maybe just too busy.

277,000 new people added to Planet Earth EVERY DAY! This cannot continue. And the world is not even discussing the problem of world human population growth ! i guess China is the only one taking action on it.

It is real; it is happening now; it is here. And I am certain that there are more chilling surprises right around the corner. I have not had enough time to gear up my fledgling site to reflect all of this negative. but it is surely one of the reasons I started the site in the first place.

Thanks folks..... for the eye openers. That ocean dead zone news just scares the hell out of me (at Altered Oceans link).

Robert
www.itsaboutnature.net
Topic Locked  

by SantaFeJoe on Fri Sep 19, 2014 9:51 am
User avatar
SantaFeJoe
Forum Contributor
Posts: 8622
Joined: 28 Jan 2012
Location: Somewhere Out In The Wilds
Here's something else to think about for many of us as photographers, especially those of us who do our own printing:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/enviro ... thing2.htm

Joe
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.  -Pablo Picasso
Topic Locked  

by Blck-shouldered Kite on Fri Sep 19, 2014 10:52 am
Blck-shouldered Kite
Forum Contributor
Posts: 2669
Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Location: Maine
My printer has been down for quite some time.  And because I do not often feel the necessity of a printer and I refuse to pay the going price for cartridges, I have not purchased a new one yet.   

Mine is the old Epson Stylus C62.  Don't laugh, I am hoping to repair this one locally or find one in great shape.   You see, I do not print pictures, only publishing them on the net.  But I do want to start printing text for the purpose of proofreading my documents.  Cartridge price is paramount to me.

Here is where I used to buy my ink.  

http://www.inkgrabber.com/Epson-Stylus- ... jet-m-3478

It is INKGRABBER and the ones for the C62 were always the re-manufactured ones.  They are much cheaper.  

QUESTION:  Are re-manufactured cartridges better for the environment; i.e. do they simply refill the spent Epson cartridges?
Topic Locked  

by SantaFeJoe on Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:36 pm
User avatar
SantaFeJoe
Forum Contributor
Posts: 8622
Joined: 28 Jan 2012
Location: Somewhere Out In The Wilds
Check this one out:

http://news.distractify.com/beth-buczyn ... -maldives/

Joe
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.  -Pablo Picasso
Topic Locked  

by E.J. Peiker on Sun Oct 19, 2014 7:29 am
User avatar
E.J. Peiker
Senior Technical Editor
Posts: 86761
Joined: 16 Aug 2003
Location: Arizona
Member #:00002
SantaFeJoe wrote:Check this one out:

http://news.distractify.com/beth-buczyn ... -maldives/

Joe

:( :x :cry:
Topic Locked  

Display posts from previous:  Sort by:  
69 posts | 
  

Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group