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From: phister@inbox.com
"burfordTjustice" wrote in message
news:ofem9e$tvp$7@dont-email.me...
Lavers said she is so appalled by the amount of plastic in the oceans
that she has taken to using a bamboo iPhone case and toothbrush.
Boy! That will show the world what is what!
Scientists find 38 million pieces of trash washed up on Pacific island
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – When researchers traveled to a tiny, uninhabited
island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they were astonished to find an
estimated 38 million pieces of trash washed up on the beaches.
Almost all of the garbage they found on Henderson Island was made from
plastic. There were toy soldiers, dominos, toothbrushes and hundreds of
hardhats of every shape, size and color.
The researchers say the density of trash was the highest recorded anywhere
in the world, despite Henderson Island's extreme remoteness. The island is
located about halfway between New Zealand and Chile and is recognized as a
UNESCO world heritage site.
Jennifer Lavers, a research scientist at Australia's University of Tasmania,
was lead author of the report, which was published Tuesday in "Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences."
Lavers said Henderson Island is at the edge of a vortex of ocean currents
known as the South Pacific gyre, which tends to capture and hold floating
trash.
"The quantity of plastic there is truly alarming," Lavers told The
Associated Press. "It's both beautiful and terrifying."
She said she sometimes found herself getting mesmerized by the variety and
colors of the plastic that litters the island before the tragedy of it would
sink in again.
Lavers and six others stayed on the island for 3½ months in 2015 while
conducting the study. They found the trash weighed an estimated 17.6 tons
and that more than two-thirds of it was buried in shallow sediment on the
beaches.
Lavers said she noticed green toy soldiers that looked identical to those
her brother played with as a child in the early 1980s, as well as red motels
from the Monopoly board game.
She said the most common items they found were cigarette lighters and
toothbrushes. One of the strangest was a baby pacifier.
She said they found a sea turtle that had died after getting caught in an
abandoned fishing net and a crab that was living in a cosmetics container.
By clearing a part of a beach of trash and then watching new pieces
accumulate, Lavers said they were able to estimate that more than 13,000
pieces of trash wash up every day on the island, which is about 10
kilometers (6 miles) long and 5 kilometers (3 miles) wide.
Henderson Island is part of the Pitcairn Islands group, a British
dependency. It is so remote that Lavers said she missed her own wedding
after the boat coming to collect the group was delayed.
Luckily, she said, the guests were still in Tahiti, in French Polynesia,
when she showed up three days late, and she still got married.
Lavers said she is so appalled by the amount of plastic in the oceans that
she has taken to using a bamboo iPhone case and toothbrush.
"We need to drastically rethink our relationship with plastic," she said.
"It's something that's designed to last forever, but is often only used for
a few fleeting moments and then tossed away."
Melissa Bowen, an oceanographer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand
who was not involved in the study, said that winds and currents in the gyre
cause the buildup of plastic items on places like Henderson Island.
"As we get more and more of these types of studies, it is bringing home the
reality of plastic in the oceans," Bowen said.
I hope they collected it up as they counted it, that would be worthwhile.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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