IT'S EARTH DAY! WAYS TO CELEBRATE TODAY and EVERY DAY! 10,000 EVENTS

EARTHDAY ORG  Click on your place in the world....

Excerpt: Community cleanups, teach-ins, peaceful demonstrations, tree planting, voter registration, town hall meetings, community organizing — every action strengthens the movement. Add your event to the map and show the power of collective action.

OCEAN PLASTIC CLEAN UP! OCEAN GYRES : IT'S NOT JUST THE PACIFIC : HERE IS A PROPOSED PROJECT

OCEAN PLASTIC CLEAN UP - OCEAN GYRES IN ALL OCEANS  

Excerpt:

There are 5 swirling ocean garbage patches called gyres. Garbage patches generally accumulate far from any country’s coastline, and it is nearly impossible to track the origin of marine debris. The tiny plastic particles that make up most of the patches are also very difficult and expensive to detect and remove.

1. NORTH ATLANTIC GYRE 

2. SOUTH ATLANTIC GYRE 

3. INDIAN OCEAN GYRE 

4. NORTH PACIFIC GYRE 

5. SOUTH PACIFIC GYRE 

To date no nation has accepted responsibility for cleaning up the ocean’s garbage patches to the extent that they will agree to fund ocean cleaning up operations. Such Agreement could allow a commercial approach to venture capitalists. .....

Keep Reading - Go to the Link!

ATLANTIC TRASH PATCH : NOT AS BIG AS THE ONE IN THE PACIFIC BUT AS TRAGIC

ATLAS OBSURA : ATLANTIC GARBAGE PATCH

Excerpt: 

As four major currents in the North Atlantic Ocean between Virginia and Cuba push rubbish through the sea, it gets absorbed into a giant marine trash island we now call the North Atlantic Garbage Patch. ...

Using this data, scientists estimate that the North Atlantic Garbage Patch is hundreds of kilometers in size and has a density of 200,000 pieces of trash per square kilometer in some places. Despite its enormous size and density, the patch is, more often than not, invisible to the naked eye and even satellite imaging. The photodegradable plastic that makes up the vast majority of the mass shrinks to smaller than .01 of an inch and is pushed under the surface of the water by deep waves. Unfortunately, this attribute makes it all the more likely that the plastic - and all of its pollutants - will be swallowed by aquatic creatures.

SUNFISH HAS TRUNCATED TAIL - TOPS OUT AT 5000 POUNDS - BUT VULNERABLE TO EATING PLASTIC BAGS BECAUSE THEY MAY SEEM TO BE JELLIES

MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM on THE SUNFISH

Excerpt: Because molas spend so much time drifting near the ocean surface, they are vulnerable to fishing boats that use drift gillnets. Gillnets usually don't kill molas immediately, but they cut into their skin, scrape off their protective mucus and flood their gills with air.

Another hazard to the mola are discarded plastic bags. When these wind up in the ocean, they float at the surface and look a lot like a jelly — a mola's favorite meal. If the mola doesn't choke as it sucks the bag in, the plastic can clog the fish's stomach, slowly starving the animal. Helping the mola is one more reason to carry your own shopping bags with you to the store — and make sure any plastic bags you use are properly disposed of.

The mola is listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

DIVER SWIMS IN SEA FULL OF PLASTIC POLLUTION

Diver Rich Horner  Excerpt: Diver Rich Horner has captured video of himself swimming through water densely strewn with plastic waste and yellowing food wrappers, with the occasional tropical fish darting around.

The footage was shot at a dive site called Manta Point, a cleaning station for the large rays on the island of Nusa Penida, about 20km from the popular Indonesian holiday island of Bali. 'Plastic, plastic, plastic': British diver films sea of rubbish off Bali

REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE

 

SURFERS AGAINST SEWAGE : ONE IN THREE FISH FOR HUMAN FOOD HAS PLASTIC IN IT AND OTHER STATS!

SAS ORG : PLASTIC STATS  For wildlife such as fish, dolphins, seabirds, and seals it can be fatal..  A whale with thirty plastic bags in its stomach....Immerse yourself in plastic trash and its shocking impact on our blue planet to better understand the big issues at play.

LEAVE THAT SHELL ON THE BEACH AND TAKE A PHOTO INSTEAD : ETHICAL SEA SHELL COLLECTING

Ethical sea shell collecting means:

Leaving any shell that has a living animal alone.

And you may not be able to tell so leave it alone.

Even broken and partial shells are part of the ecosystem.

Some sea creatures will borrow the empty shell of another.

Small fish hide in shells.

Do not buy sea shells by the bag in shops: They have been dredged from the ocean floor which destroys an eco-system. 

It's best not to buy sea shells at all.  You may find some collections for sale or find shells at garage sales and thrift shops, which were found or purchased in the past...

Do not buy plastic reproductions of shells.  Plastic is an overall problem for our environment.

Consider: 

Taking photos of shells to document them.

Draw, paint, or sculpt sea shells.

Pick up sea-polished glass off the beach instead. 

Take anything you bring to the beach back out, recycling bottles and cans and anything else you can.

Join a beach clean-up team for a morning or take some bags with you and fill them up with refuse that other people left behind.

Siren.

USING SATELLITES TO DETECT PLASTIC IN EARTH'S OCEANS : FUNDED BY THE EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY

How do hyperspectral sensors find plastic from a satellite looking down on earth? Science researcher, Robin de Vries, explains...

All I can say is WOW!

Siren 

HOW TO SAVE THE OCEANS by TELLY'S MARINE TALES,

SURFERS AGAINST SEWAGE ! EVER AVOID GETTING INTO THE WATER BECAUSE OF THE YUK FACTOR?

SURFERS AGAINST SEWAGE - GREAT BRITAIN 

After learning that very many people avoid going into rivers or the sea because of fears of becoming sick from sewage, I learned about this group.

I sure hope the mermaids are not killed off from sewage.

THE PLASTIC PROBLEM - A PBS NEWSHOUR SPECIAL

 

What can YOU do to prevent this problem?  The number one thing you can do is put plastics in recycling.  If you do not have recycling in your area, at least put plastics into the garbage pickup bins.  

Don't leave plastics on the beach or in the street.

Insist your friends follow your good example.

Learn what happens to the garbage in your area.  Is it time to advocate for recycling?

Reuse plastic bags or take your own cloth sacks to the grocery and other stores.

THAMES RIVER CRABS EATING MICROPLASTIC

DAILY MAIL UK ONLINE: SCIENCE THAMES RIVER MICROPLASTIC and CRABS 

EXCERPT: Researchers found that 94,000 microplastic particles - many from larger pieces of plastic broken down - were flowing through parts of the Thames every second.

These also included fibers from washing machine outflows and sewage outfalls - with much of it being swallowed by local wildlife including various crab species.

The density of microplastics in the Thames was higher than some other major rivers including the Rhine in Germany, the Danube in Romania, and the Chicago in the U.S.

IS SEA GRASS THE NATURAL SOLUTION TO PLASTIC POLLUTION?

PHYS ORG SEA GRASS and PLASTIC 

EXCERPT: There are some 70 species of marine seagrass, grouped in several families of flowering plants that - originally on land - recolonized the ocean some80 to 100 million years ago.

Growing from the Artic to the tropics, most speies hae long, grass-like leaves that can form vast unerwater meadows.

They are more than just pretty, however.

They play a vital role in improving water quality, absorb CO2 and exude oxygen, and are a natural nursery and refuge for hundreds of species of fish.

SURFRIDER FOUNDATION HAS CHAPTERS ALL OVER! EVEN CHICAGO!

SURFRIDER ORG 

PLASTIC POLLUTION

FRESH WATER

BEACH ACCESS

Just some of the things worth fighting for!

Check them out!  They have chapters all over - MAUI -  MICHIGAN.

WHAT IS RECYCLEABLE?

THE OCEAN CLEAN UP - NEW MACHINE TO CLEAN UP PLASTIC GARBAGE PATCHES

THE OCEAN CLEAN UP NON PROFIT
EXCERPT: "Plastic pollution in the world's oceans is one of the biggest environmental issues of our time, impacting more than 600 marine species.

DAILY MAIL UK on INVENTOR'S OCEAN CLEANING BOOM : BOYAN SLAT

Boyan is only twenty five years old.

Excerpt: "Having addressed issues caused by the boom's drifting speed, large waves and damage at sea, the device is now successfully  helping to clean up the Pacific.

The system, which drifts slowly across the sea and is emptied by visiting ships is currently gathering together rubbish between California and Hawaii.

The device is capable of catching floating waster ranging in size from discarded fishing nets and car tired down to plastic chips one milimeter in size."

THE INDIAN OCEAN DOESN'T HAVE MUCH OF A GARBAGE PATCH - WHY NOT?

HAKAI MAGAZINE : INDIAN OCEAN - DISAPPEARING GARBAGE PATCH by Kimberly Riskas

EXCERPTS:  According to a new study led by Mirjam van der Mheen, a doctoral candidate at the University of Western Australia, the Indian Ocean's unique geography, ocean currents, and atmospheric conditions actually appear to be preventing waste from piling up in a garbage patch.  ...  Since they couldn't track individual pie es of plastic, the team used the next best thing: GPS date from more than 22,000 buoys that have drifted around the oceans since 1979. Running the data through computer simulations provided a picture of how floating objects are pushed around by currents and wind.

CLEAN BEACH POSTER CONTEST - 3rd to 5th GRADERS ENTER SOON!

BEACHES - LA COUNTY - CLEAN BEACH POSTER CONTEST

Department of Beaches and Harbors! is sponsoring this contest and if you win, your art will appear on trash cans!

This site has a video and some fun activities for children.

TINY SEA TURTLE DEAD WITH PIECES OF PLASTIC IN IT"S LITTLE BODY

DAILY MAIL: TINY TURTLE DEAD FLORIDA BEACH - 104 PIECES OF PLASTIC

It would fit in the palm of your hand so this little turtle was stuffed with plastic.