So saith the Preacher:
All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. (Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, verse 7)
Ten miles from where I was born and raised, and seventy-five miles from where my family and I now live, one can stand on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, gaze as far off into the distance as one can possibly see, and marvel at it its sheer size and power. From the northern Oregon shoreline, it is difficult to imagine that anything so vast and demonstrating such elemental power could ever be in any way harmed by such a puny creature as man. However Chris Jordan’s recent photos of dead young albatrosses on Midway Atoll, their decaying remains clearly depicting just how much plastic garbage and other human refuse they had been eating, have given me an image more clear than any other I have previously seen that all is most certainly not well out in the ocean by the side of which I have lived all my life.
Far out beyond the beach, out of sight of all but trans-Pacific mariners, lies the Gyre, a giant island of garbage floating on and descending into the ocean. No one is exactly sure of just how large this mass is; some have estimated it to be as large as the state of Texas, some even larger than that. However what is certain is that the effect it is having upon the life of the sea is clear. Not only albatross but all other ocean-feeding birds are susceptible to either becoming entangled in it or mistakenly thinking a bit of the debris of which it is composed is edible. Below the surface, the marine life is prone to these same hazards.
Because it is out in international waters, no country is taking responsibility for causing it or cleaning it up. Because it is out of sight of all but the crews of open water ships, no outcry is widely made to address it. Yet one look at the contents of the bellies of the dead albatrosses makes it clear from whence most of its contents come.
While there are efforts underway to at least better understand how this man-made monstrosity formed and from this, perhaps what can be done to at least prevent it from becoming worse, one thing is clear: our excessive reliance upon single-use plastic bottles, bottle-tops, and other modern detritus has contributed to it. After viewing the photos I have begun to consider what I purchase far more carefully – not only for how long the thing itself will last but how it is packaged as well. Something as simple as washing and refilling a single bottle for water rather than buying three or four pre-filled bottles, or carrying your own travel mug into your local coffee shop rather than using a paper cup once then discarding it (the adult “sippy-cup” plastic lids are particularly a problem with take-out espresso drinks) is as good a place to begin as anywhere if we are to avoid being found worthy of the punishment so well depicted by Coleridge:
Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
