The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

/
0 Comments



Over the past year or so, I've been hearing more and more info in regards to the patches of collected trash floating in the great pacific that is estimated to be twice the size of Texas. In doing research and trying to find out more information, it was utterly impossible to find an aerial image or video capture of this monstrosity of garbage. The best I found were cluster images and a video of individuals sailing through the densely plastic littered waters.


The topic of how much garbage, plastic and byproducts of consumerism has been discussed endlessly, yet everyday we make purchases where 90% of the item is destined for the trash. It is estimated that less than 5% of plastics actually get recycled. As an example, I recently purchased 3 XBox Live cards for my friend in Canada (because they're much more inexpensive down here), when I received them I was appalled at how difficult it was to gauge open this prison of plastic, to retrieve a plastic coated card that contained a number, in which I would email to him. It was absurd! It's understandable that if I had made this purchase directly from Microsoft, i could have been emailed the code, but the purpose was for my friend to save money on the annual cost.

Another key company that comes to mind when it comes to an abundance of packaging is Apple. Apple and all other Mac lovers always seemed like indie hipster tree hugger type people to me, but when you purchase ANYTHING from their, half the appeal is the beautiful packaging and abundance of plastic cases and wrap. What gives Apple? Would an Ipod or your laptop not be as cool if it wasn't wrapped in shiny plastic, in a box in a bigger box in more plastic?

Ikea is huge for this too. Whether it be a desk, bed, lamp or anything, Ikea puts so much crap filler packaging, it's amazing to me what a mess I'm left with after putting together furniture.

The idea is that buyers do need to be more conscious of what be buy, but additionally pressure needs to be laid on corporations to make greener decisions. You have these corporate fat cats that horde the money from cheap labor in China, yet pollute the rivers and etc causing birth defects.

I'm not sitting here claiming to be a tree hugger, with my posts recently, but the truth is all of this garbage, mercury in the water from pollution, comes back and affects us and our health.
Karma is a .....

\ Via "on the go"


You may also like