CALIFORNIA : VERY LITTLE PLASTIC BEING RECYLCLED

LA TIMES - Environment : VERY LITTLE PLASTIC BEING RECYCLED IN CALIFORNIA 

Excerpt:  Polypropylene, labeled as #5 on packaging, is used for yogurt containers, margarine tubs and microwavable trays. Only 2% of it is getting recycled. Colored shampoo and detergent bottles, made from polyethylene, or #1 plastic, are getting recycled at a rate of just 5%.

Other plastics, including ones promoted as highly recyclable, such as clear polyethylene bottles, which hold some medications, or hard water bottles, are being recycled at just 16%.

No plastic in the report exceeds a recycling rate of 23%, with the majority reported in just the single digits.

READ ON MY FRIENDS!  

DO YOU KNOW WHICH PLASTIC CONTAINERS ARE SAFE TO REUSE TO STORE OR COOK FOODS?

SAVE THE SEA

 

CALIFORNIA BANS ALL PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS

 No More Plastic Bags: All plastic carryout bags, including thicker reusable ones, are banned at checkout.

• Paper Bags Required: Retailers must provide recycled paper bags for a minimum fee of 10 cents each
  .
Fee Retention: Stores keep the 10-cent fee to cover bag costs and educational efforts.
Increased Recycled Content: By 2028, paper bags must contain at least 50% post-consumer recycled content.
Applies To: Supermarkets, large retailers with pharmacies, convenience stores, and food marts. 

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!

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS FOR HOW TO RECYCLE SOMETHING?

I'm always interested in any ideas or information on how to recycle things, especially PLASTICS, so that we can combat the SEA OF PLASTIC as well as all other forms of PLASTIC POLLUTION!

Please leave a comment, including any links to information you'd like me to read!

THANKS!

Siren

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

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.

OCEAN PLASTICS POLLUTION : BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY ORG

BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY ORG : OCEAN PLASTICS POLLUTION 

Excerpt: We're surrounded by plastic. It’s in the single-use packaging we discard, the consumer goods that fill our stores, and in our clothing, which sheds microplastic fibers in the wash.

In the first decade of this century, we made more plastic than all the plastic in history up to the year 2000. And every year, billions of pounds of more plastic end up in the world's oceans. Studies estimate there are now 15–51 trillion pieces of plastic in the world's oceans — from the equator to the poles, from Arctic ice sheets to the sea floor. Not one square mile of surface ocean anywhere on earth is free of plastic pollution.

The problem is growing into a crisis. The fossil fuel industry plans to increase plastic production by 40 percent over the next decade. These oil giants are rapidly building petrochemical plants across the United States to turn fracked gas into plastic. This means more toxic air pollution and plastic in our oceans.

We need urgent action to address the global plastic pollution epidemic.

Unfortunately, plastic is so durable that the EPA reports “every bit of plastic ever made still exists.” All five of the Earth's major ocean gyres are inundated with plastic pollution. The largest one has been dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

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 

BOYAN SLAT - INVENTOR FOUNDER OF THE OCEAN CLEAN UP : PROGRESS REPORT : THERE'S STILL HOPE

SEA OF PLASTIC : MOST PLASTIC FLOWS INTO OCEANS FROM RIVERS

HEAL THE BAY BEACH CLEAN UPS include NOTHIN BUT SAND and SUITS ON THE SAND

HEAL THE BAY BEACH CLEAN UPS 

It's more fun to clean the beach with a group - more like-minded people to meet.  

But if you take away everything you took in every time, you are an ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST!

If you're reading this post from some other part of the United States or the world, check the Internet to find your closest beach, lake, or river clean up.

SEA LIFE TRUST - BELUGA WHALES, SEALS, and GLOBAL BEACH CLEAN UPS TO COMBAT THE SEA OF PLASTiCS

SEA LIFE TRUST 

Global Conservation Projects

Cornish Seal Sanctuary

Beluga Whale Sanctuary

Global Beach Clean Up ..... 

SEA LIFE TRUST HAS A VISION OF A WORLD WHERE OCEANS ARE HEALTHY, PROPERLY PROTECTED and FULL OF DIVERSE LIFE.  WE CHAMPION THE NEED FOR PLASTIC-FREE OCEANS AND OUT ANNUAL 24 HOUR GLOBAL BEACH CLEAN IS A FANTASTIC WAY TO SUPPORT THIS.

BOATING INTERNATIONAL FEATURES NEW INVENTIONS TO CLEAN UP THE SEA OF PLASTIC

I'm trying to be fair here, but so much of the plastic and other litter on cruise ships and other big boats is in the sea because they dump it out there rather than haul it back to shore and pay for the pick up and deposit in a land dump. DON'T THROW IT IN THE OCEAN IN THE FIRST PLACE!

BOATING INTERNATIONAL on NEW PLASTIC RETRIEVAL INVENTIONS

These huge sea vehicles are also hitting into the sea life that can't get out of their way fast enough.

We get it that many people get into boating because they love the sea, but humans cannot exist in the water for long and are designed for land...

BEACH ECOLOGY IS OCEAN ECOLOGY!

 BEACH ECOLOGY IS OCEAN ECOLOGY!

Remember to take home anything you brought with you - towels, flip flops, food, cans.. sunscreen and tanning oils... because if you leave it on the beach it's probably going to end up in the ocean and endanger the natural environment of the ocean, lake, or river.

But also remember to leave what belongs to nature - the earth - right where it is.  Do not take sea creatures from tidepools!

Just take photos!

HELLO and WELCOME BACK TO MY BLOG

The reason you have not seen posts here is because Google blocked me from my own long held account, which is used ONLY for this blog and no outside communications, simply because I changed computer use. 

Frankly, I have sent Google messages letting them know that they are making using Google a much less than a friendly experience.

I continue to be highly interested in sea life, ocean ecology, and all the subjects I've presented to you here at SIREN'S LINK TO SEA for many years.

Yours,

Siren

ALL THOSE PRESENTS, ALL THAT PACKAGING!

So much paper, cardboard, and plastic that needs to go into the recycling, or at least in the proper garbage pickup bins.  

PLEASE think about how YOU can recycle!

Reuse wrapping paper or skip it...  use scrap fabric or a scarf instead!  Or put the presents in a pillow sack!

THE GENERATOR THAT TURNS PLASTIC TRASH INTO EDIBLE PROTEIN : THE FUTURE INSIGHT PRIZE

NEWSWEEK - GENERATOR - PLATIC - PROTEIN By Georgina Jadikovskaall from a bit more than a year ago,

Excerot: Two U.S. scientists have won a 1 million euro ($1.18 million) prize for creating a generator conet that turns plastics into protein.

The 2021 Future Insight Prize went to Ting Lu, a professor of bioengineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Stephen Techtmann, associate pofessor of biological Sciences at Michigan Technological University, for their project.  It used microbes to degrade plastic. 

MORE INFORMATION ON THE FUTURE INSIGHT PRIZE:

MERCK - FUTURE INSIGHT PRIZE

GORILLAZ : PLASTIC BEACH

  

Thought this was an interesting song but I hate to post anything with commercials.