Wind and Plastic

The day started out beautiful if overcast. Lance joined me on the water and we headed out with flat water and following winds. We got to or destination, the Maritime Museum, and then hopped over to the Marine Science Building where folks were doing fish prints- fanning paint on dead tilapia, one of the few sustainable farm raised fish-and where i got to meet Jean Walat, Volunteer and Citizen Coordinator at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center, who will soon be leaving for a research mission. She will be collecting sea gull bollings, better known as sea gull vomit, to study the contents. This will enable scientists to determine how much plastic the birds are ingesting.

Plastics are becoming a growing threat to marine life, and consequently ours, as they work their way up the food chain. Who would have thought that a product we have grown to rely on for so many uses in only the past 50 years would present itself to be such an insidious evil. But such is the way of things, I suppose, when the long term use and consequential build-up in our environment of something so innocuous seeming as plastic is not foreseen or even contemplated.

From the five gyres in the ocean, to the chemicals plastics give off as the break down into smaller plastics, to what happens when plastics become part of the food chain, it would do us and our children some good to pay attention to the studies already done, continue to study the problems, and definitely adjust our habits, and even national policy accordingly.

Plastics, especially single use, disposable plastics, are becoming a problem too big to ignore. More info can be found about the problems of plastic in the marine environment from any of a number of sources. One of the best is 5gyres.org. Surfrider Foundation have very good information on the subject.

Well, better pack up and hit that cold water! Will see if I can make it to Port Angeles today, if the wind kicks, it could be another short day.

For the ocean!