Lately, there have been a lot of plastic bags crossing my patch. Last week, I was talking to my son on the phone when I saw one launched out a car window. It went straight up in the air like a hot air balloon, then floated down only to dodge traffic. Even though I was enjoying my conversation with my son who is off to grad school, I had to hang up. He wanted to know what was the matter and laughed when I told him it was because of a plastic bag let loose on the street, right near a storm drain. His laughing doesn't bother me because I know, deep down, he appreciates my willingness to stop on my bike to go pick it up.
In 2007, we used 60,000 plastic bags every 5 seconds in the US alone. That's 720,000 every minute. There ya go, now I know why they've been floating around on the streets. OMG, imagine how much more it might be today if people didn't start bringing their own to the store. Awesome people!
This blog shares the research experiences and findings conducted at University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW faculty and students) in conjunction with Plastic Ocean Project. Earlier posts share open-ocean sampling and adventures in the North and South Atlantic, the South Pacific and the North Pacific Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Outreach and education is the primary purposes to bring global awareness to an issue that has reached a crisis level in the marine environment.
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