Witness to a Plastic Invasion

i wonder where the plastic on the outer beaches of belize comes from , perhaps haiti? i recently was talking to a worker on one of the islands and he stated why clean it up , only more will come ashore tomorow. still i have a plan but it means hauling bags of debris to the landfill on the mainland. so many conundrums these days.

Such a plethora of comments to your lovely article and images. The amazing video of what you found in the waters off Belize made me queasy on several counts! Personal note: I'm so proud to have a daughter who is so caring of our environment and is such a fine writer! Love you, Mom

Such a pelethera of heartfelt comments to your article/video/images of what you found in thwaters of Belize. Personal note: I'm proud to have a daughter who is so sinciteful, caring, and is such a fine writer! Mom!

Good article. Very thought provoking.

Never have I seen an issue draw such naive, knee-jerk responses as the "ocean plastic" issue. The moment most people see plastic trash in the ocean, rational thought, apparently, disintegrates. All the stuff you saw in the ocean at one point proved a valuable, possibly lifesaving tool for someone. If it was a detergent bottle then it didn't shatter on the floor and leave shrds of glass that an infant might crawl through. If it was a plastic fork then maybe it prevented the spread of disease by being clean and sanitary right out of the package. The point is, why not try to make a difference by engaging in activities that help more of the world better recycle and recover trash? Figuring out how you can stop using plastic in your house is not going to stop 1million people in some third world country from dumping all of their trash in the street.

Just to think some of those plastic forks could be mine... never buying or using it again! I think we need to stop making all this plastic, but they will never stop while people is buying it, so I guess we just gotta stop consuming it, right? is everyone with me on this? I am reusing my plastic fork every day from now on in the office instead of picking up one every day, definitely, it is like the minimum that I could ever do after watching this, obviously I will do more than that! But we have to manage this planet to stop, soon enough, making DISPOSABLE PLASTIC OBJECTS that we can sure live without that, and not sure we can survive with it.

did you clean up the plastic after you filmed it?
if not, then question yourselves

I think that our National Guard and our Navy should be helping to clean up all this plastic waste while their out at sea floating around. I mean they say there here to serve and protect and in the end what are they really doing with our tax dollars?

Good for you! This is such a terrible site to see, I have on occasion picked up plastic that others have litter, but not as much as I should have and I will now.

It is time to change... it is time to wake up and realize we are hurting ourselves and destroying mother nature which in the end kills us!!!! HELLO PEOPLE... no more of this....

Egads, who do we think we are? What will it take for us to wake up and see the damage we are doing?
---- Islandgirl1975

you've done a good thing here. thank you. to the troll who wants you to pick it up (because a journey begins with blah, blah, blah), i say you've DONE that, looked back only to find you've not dented it. it's a huge job FOR EVERYONE.
anywho, thanks much for this eye-opener. i'd heard about this plastic "island," but seeing it broke my heart.

-joan, falls church, virginia

If I could make EU law it would be to make all food packaging biodegradable making it more economic for companies to do it worldwide.

For some above comments, yes there is a way to convert plastic back into a liquid hydrocarbon form. It's pretty simple, but not available on a large scale yet. Though the resulting oil can be burned as a fuel, that just moves the pollution to the air. Another option is to grow oyster mushrooms or some other wood growing fungus within a hydrocarbon soaked pile of compost.
The fungal mycelium are able to break hydrocarbon chains and turn them into carbohydrate sugars.
I think it's a simple solution: liquify the plastic gyres and feed the oil to huge fungal farms to remove this waste from the planet entirely.

I was raised on Ambergis Caye, Belize- and this is all too familiar, it's very sad.

Humanity was the worst thing to ever happen to this planet.

Instead of taking video of it start picking it up! A journey starts with a single step.

Hey Guys,
I was using stumbleupon and came across the ocean portal... I remember trying to find errors on this page... anyways its great to see how the web is starting to get the word out to people that may not otherwise have information on the subject.
-Parker Semler

I understand that the plastic is mostly blown in from the cities.

No, the earth has recovered from many tragedies before with new species evolving so I don't worry about being the only living species eventually. Certainly, we will be the means to our own end though and eventually humans are going to drown in their own waste.

Very moving! However, I wonder why you make no mention or obvious attempt at cleaning up any of the debris that you were filming?!

Wow, very thought provoking. What is the song being played?

Excellent article. Great imagery! Thank you for posting.

someone better find a way to use plastic as a renewable energy source.

The big question is why is municipal garbage dumped into the ocean in the first place?

This is so sad, we are killing so many living things, one day we are going to regret it, when we realize that sooner or later we will be the only living spicie. RECYCLE & CONSERVE... :)

This makes me want to cry.

Yes, use less and then, recycle, recycle, recycle!

thank you for the heart you have for our planet, and you tried to reduce the amount of the rubbish that some careless people throw all over the place not thinking about the its consequences that they will later face in the future. i am very proud of you and of what you have done. i hope all of us human understand and know what they are doing that are contributing to destroy our beautiful ocean. frm leirana wolem, ni-vanuatu.

I never knew that there was so much trash in the ocean! It is scary to me to think that day and night there is yuckey garbage polluting the ocean! I am going to try to make and post a blog just about ocean pollutions too, so it will also be puplished worldwide for everyone to see!

-Julia

When I first saw tis, I was shocked! This summer I am going to talk with my parents to see if I can go up their and try hard to clean up as much as I can, so there will be at least a bit less trash. It is my new nightmare!!!!

-Julia

Awesome! can i get a link to download it?

Brilliant video, Laurie, accompanied by a perfect soundtrack. Quite moving in its simplicity.

After watching, I was struck by almost the exact same series of feelings as you. First, the recognition of the startling familiarity of the items in that patch of garbage, followed by a sick feeling as I recalled how many times I've eaten a meal using a plastic fork which immediately went into the trash when I was finished, occasionally for the simple convenience of not having to go to the effort of washing my utensils.

The next realization was how much plastic is in my house, the sting of my environmental conscience softened slightly by the fact that I, too, reuse as many as possible of the containers I purchase for other things after I empty the original contents: toring or sharing leftover foods, homemade BBQ sauces and rubs, and other similar purposes.

Finally, the urge to make a stronger effort to avoid plastic in general as much as I can.

Keep up the good work and keep fighting the good fight. I'm forwarding this to many of my friends.

impressive footage. do you know our flyer on this matter?

http://www.deepwave.org/images/downloads/deepwave_marineplastic_report.pdf

and my former blog entry here..

yurs Inno

thanks so much,nice post,video is also the easy one method for explanation

I am thinking it may have been from a high tide, pulling the stuff back to sea off of the beaches. Stuff that floats in from all over the Caribbean. I have looked into the concept of plastics recycling in Belize, and I may be mistaken, but from what I understand, although some plastics are collected, none are recycled in Belize. I see this as an opportunity for Belize, if environmental organizations could band together to help develop a system for collection and support local plastics remanufacturing into composite building materials. There are limited building materials in Belize and much of its wood products need to be shipped in from afar. This concept could tackle many environmental issues simultaneously, and could perhaps be a solution that Smithsonian could participate in.

That is so cool! Great going Laurie!