Ash, trash mark Earth Day
Published 5:29 pm Wednesday, April 21, 2010
It’s Earth Day No. 40, so let’s dish some dirt.
Mount St. Helens wonders: “What the Eyjafjallajokull is going on? What an Icelandic ash, er, show-off.”
Our planet routinely reminds us of all the environmental action outside of human control — the earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes. Earth Day is all about what we can control.
The issues are mammoth: Global warming, decimation of critical habitat and resources, air and water pollution, species extinction, etc. But every Earthling can take small, everyday actions that add up and create change.
It’s easy when confronted with an image of say, a slum in the Philippines or a polluting factory in China, to determine: That can’t be good for the planet or the people. It’s a little harder to look at the sparkling Pacific Ocean, and/or Puget Sound, and conclude the same thing.
But the huge floating pile of garbage off the West Coast of California and stretching to Hawaii, known as the “plastic vortex” and the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” is nightmarish testimony to the huge “environmental footprint” left by Americans, and in this case, the Japanese and Chinese as well.
The garbage has collected in one of five major ocean “gyres” — huge systems of rotating currents that draw in waste from thousands of miles away. The debris, growing for 60 years, is estimated at 100 million tons and constitutes the world’s single largest heap of garbage, The UK Telegraph reported last month.
The water is laden with toxic chemicals as the sun breaks down the plastic, and plastic particles are turning up in fish, the paper reported. Scientists warn that the chemicals will next work their way into the human food chain.
The gray whale that died this week after getting stranded on a West Seattle beach had consumed a lot of garbage — sweat pants, a golf ball, small towels, duct tape, surgical gloves, and more than 20 plastic bags.
While scientists say there’s no indication that the garbage killed the whale, they said it was obvious it had been feeding in “industrial waters.” As if industrial waters were somehow kept separate from the rest of the sea, incapable of travel.
Locally, many receptacles offering green recycled bags to pick up dog waste now sport stickers that say: “Puget Sound starts here.” A perfect, on-point message. The environmental chain of command begins with every individual, every day. It’s as simple and small and local as throwing those sweatpants away or recycling that plastic bag, picking up after the dog, doing the right thing, despite or in spite of industry.
