Monday, April 12th, 2010 | Postuar nga quareos

The stark reality of a throw-away society

Fast-forward a few decades and there I was again, on the shores of Sydney Harbor cleaning up a very different kind of litter. It was 1989 and I was leading the first ever Clean Up Day on Sydney Harbor and 40,000 other Sydneysiders were removing hundreds of tons of accumulated plastic, polystyrene, aluminum cans and glass bottles, dumped cars and shopping trolleys.
This event led to Clean Up Australia, which then became the global Clean Up the World movement involving organizations and communities in 130 countries.
The dramatic change in my life was due to rubbish. What I saw while sailing solo around the world in the late 1980s changed me forever. Instead of the stark beauty of the deep blue oceans, I sailed through nautical mile after mile of marine debris.
Plastic of all types, discarded fishing nets and polystyrene buoys blanketing the surface of the ocean. This scene was repeated in all of the oceans I crossed and the remnants of an increasingly throwaway society greeted me at each port.
An estimated 7 million tons of rubbish arrives in the world’s oceans every year.
–Ian Kiernan
RELATED TOPICS
Nature and the Environment
Environmental Protection
Marine Animals
I resolved then and there to make a difference, to take action raise awareness about the damage our wasteful habits were having on our oceans. The rubbish in our oceans is not only ugly — it kills.
Turtles with the rings of plastic bottles around their necks, choking to death. Dolphins caught in old fishing nets, drowning because they can’t break free. And seabirds drowning because of the fishing line wrapped around their wings. Between 700,000 and 1 million seabirds are killed each year by marine debris such as discarded fishing line and plastic bags. An estimated 100,000 marine mammals are killed each year by plastic in the ocean.

Fast-forward a few decades and there I was again, on the shores of Sydney Harbor cleaning up a very different kind of litter. It was 1989 and I was leading the first ever Clean Up Day on Sydney Harbor and 40,000 other Sydneysiders were removing hundreds of tons of accumulated plastic, polystyrene, aluminum cans and glass bottles, dumped cars and shopping trolleys.This event led to Clean Up Australia, which then became the global Clean Up the World movement involving organizations and communities in 130 countries.The dramatic change in my life was due to rubbish. What I saw while sailing solo around the world in the late 1980s changed me forever. Instead of the stark beauty of the deep blue oceans, I sailed through nautical mile after mile of marine debris.Plastic of all types, discarded fishing nets and polystyrene buoys blanketing the surface of the ocean. This scene was repeated in all of the oceans I crossed and the remnants of an increasingly throwaway society greeted me at each port.An estimated 7 million tons of rubbish arrives in the world’s oceans every year.–Ian KiernanRELATED TOPICSNature and the EnvironmentEnvironmental ProtectionMarine AnimalsI resolved then and there to make a difference, to take action raise awareness about the damage our wasteful habits were having on our oceans. The rubbish in our oceans is not only ugly — it kills.Turtles with the rings of plastic bottles around their necks, choking to death. Dolphins caught in old fishing nets, drowning because they can’t break free. And seabirds drowning because of the fishing line wrapped around their wings. Between 700,000 and 1 million seabirds are killed each year by marine debris such as discarded fishing line and plastic bags. An estimated 100,000 marine mammals are killed each year by plastic in the ocean.

From:http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/04/12/plastiki.kiernan.plastic/index.html?hpt=C1

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