Plastic not at all fantastic

(PHOTO: JAMES PRESTON)

There’s a big hoo ha going on in Britain right now about plastic shopping bags, which I am totally behind. I try to rarely take plastic bags in stores and would happily accept a fine (which would hopefully be donated to some green clean-up project) if I forget to bring my own and have to purchase one. Plastic is a modern miracle but there’s just so much of it being used and chucked every year that inevitably some of it will end up where it shouldn’t.

Before the BBC news tonight I’d never heard of the island of Midway, in the central Pacific. But now I know more than I want to. Apparently, nearly two million Laysan albatrosses live here and every single one contains some quantity of plastic. The birds eat plastic lighters because they look a bit like squid, and eat many other tasty types of plastic besides. And it does them no good at all.

Clean up crews work constantly to clear the beaches of Midway, polluted with plastic thanks to powerful ocean currents. Each time there’s a storm a fresh load is dumped there, and they have to start clearing over again. The telly news item showed how much gunk one crew collected in 30 minutes, and during the whole speeded-up video a fat and fuzzy albatross chick sat on the sidelines watching. They are quite absurdly cute and tame, and their parents are graceful and beautiful - seeing a researcher pulling a plastic hook out of a chick’s beak is all the mental image I’ll need to never forget my jute bag ever again.

Read all about it here and here

The above photo is the ‘before’ pic. There are some ‘after’ pics here and here, if you have a strong stomach. They deserve better.