Plastics are found everywhere!
I know I’ve gone on about it in many past blogs. Does that mean I don’t use plastic products? No… Does that mean we should change the way we use and dispose of plastics? Yes…
I can remember when there were only glass bottles and paper bags. It was a simple life back in the fifties and sixties. Wikipedia says the early sixties was when Americans and Europeans first starting using plastic in bags.
Blame it on the Swedes!
The widespread use of lightweight plastic bags came in the mid 1960s…
“The modern lightweight shopping bag is the invention of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin.[1] In the early 1960s, Thulin developed a method of forming a simple one-piece bag by folding, welding and die-cutting a flat tube of plastic for the packaging company Celloplast of Norrköping, Sweden. Thulin’s design produced a simple, strong bag with a high load-carrying capacity, and was patented worldwide by Celloplast in 1965.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_shopping_bag
The problem with plastics today is that it’s made everything too easy. Wrapping foods that won’t spoil for weeks, covering foods in your refrigerator. Purchasing every sort of cosmetic, liquid soap, or drinks that are packaged in plastic and then putting them in plastic bags to take them home. I’m guilty.
So what’s the problem you might ask? The sheer magnitude of the use and subsequent wasting of plastic in the world is the problem. It has become infused in everything, everywhere. Plastic residues are found in our food supply and even can be found in trace amounts in our blood.
The final resting place for plastic waste often lies in our oceans. This is where it becomes concentrated in the 5 great Ocean Gyres.
According to Wikipedia, “A gyre in oceanography is any large system of rotating ocean currents, particularly those involved with large wind movements. Gyres are caused by the Coriolis Effect; planetary vorticity along with horizontal and vertical friction, which determine the circulation patterns from the wind curl (torque).”
The 5 Gyres are where plastic waste accumulates!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_gyre
Do you feel buried in Plastic waste?
Have you ever thought of a good idea that would solve an issue of great importance only to realize that there wasn’t anyway you could fund it?
Well here’s one 19 year old that has a vision of cleaning up the 5 Gyres!
“Now a 19-year-old inventor by the name of Boyan Slat says we can remove nearly 20 billion tons of plastic waste with his concept he calls an ocean cleanup array. It is made from a massive series of floating booms and processing platforms that gradually suck in the floating plastic like a giant funnel.”
Once collected, the plastic can be recycled and reused in many different ways.
Boyan feels someone can profit from this enterprise.
http://www.boyanslat.com/TEDx/
So the answer is Simple, we need one Billionaire who cares enough to fund this young mans dream! Anyone out there who cares to stand up to this task?
Come on Warren Buffet, you can make this happen!
Recycle – Reduce – Reuse
Make your world Sustainable!
Transition Town Payson 