The garbage heap is made up mostly of plastic, a product that never decomposes, it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. The result is a sort of ocean minestrone soup. Fish and birds eat the plastic thinking it is food.
Plastic bags look like jelly fish. Seals get caught in old nets and chains. I saw a scientist dissecting a dead fish whose entire stomach was filled with plastic.
Here is a bird that died because of all the trash that was unable to move through its digestive system. I apologize for the graphic picture. But imagine what the bird felt like.
Aside from the impossible sum of money cleaning up the heap would require, doing so is impossible because small fish and ocean life would get killed in the process. Scientists say the only way to improve it is to stop letting trash come down from rivers and dumps into the ocean. What does this mean? Well, recycling would help a lot! Right now only 5 percent of the world's plastic is recycled so we have a long way to go. If only for the selfish reason that you might be eating something that has tiny bits of filthy trash in it, consider recycling. God gave us dominion over his beautiful creation to tend and keep it, not trash it. The earth is not ours to destroy.
To end my discussion on this topic I shall close with a joke that made me laugh for about 5 minutes when I heard it on TV last night. Brace yourselves. I intend to be highly offensive (please note facetiousness here)....
The giant pacific trash patch. It's like a huge Sarah Palin: Taking up space and killing wildlife. Muahahah.
Speaking of Sarah Palin, I saw a picture of her office in a magazine recently. She has a giant bear carcass strung over her couch (head included), a deer head on the wall, and a dead Alaskan snow crab on her coffee table.
What do you think, should I send Sarah this T-shirt? The right to arm bears....a footnote to the 2nd amendment, perhaps? Wouldn't it be fabulous if the bear's family could exact their revenge on their lost relative?
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