Plastic woes and global issues

In my ongoing readings on global pollution and global warming issues, I stumbled upon articles about plastic pollution. Plastic grocery bags are gradually being banned, due to their nuisance as a trash issue, safety issue for wild life, and pollution issue. The information that was and is most startling to me is the plastic pollution of our oceans. http://www.plasticdebris.org/about.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pacific_Gyre, http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Moore-North-Pacific-Central-Gyre.htm, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/eveningnews/main591770.shtml,
http://www.pbs.org/odyssey/odyssey/20050428_log_transcript.html.

If you take a look at any of these links, you'll become very disheartened...more than likely....about our short-sightedness in regards to all the "stuff" that we seem to be producing out of plastic, and then throwing away....our throw away mentality. Somehow we've lost sight of the fact that plastic is a "forever" kind of material, that does not biodegrade. It also has a habit of picking up other toxins, leaching its own toxins into foods and things contained in it or cooked in it.

After I stumbled on the pacific gyre plastic pollution article, I took a look around one room in my house and counted the plastic stuff. Since I'm an "old geezer", I then tried to think back to my youth...in the 1950's and early 1960's....and what stuff was made of back then when plastic was relatively new and limited in its use. I'm rather alarmed.

If you take a look at your own surroundings, I think you, too, will find that somehow we've become plastic junkies. Wood products are coated with plastic film, the cans that food is processed in have plastic coated insides, liquids come in plastic bottles, plants grow in plastic pots, tv's are incased with plastic, junk mail comes wrapped in plastic, things bought in the store are packaged in hard plastic containers, leftover food is stored in plastic containers, tv dinners are now in plastic dishes that we microwave or bake...... Heck, we have plastic molecules circulating in our blood...at least that is what the researchers are finding. Fish in the waterways confuse bits of plastic for natural food. ETC. ETC.

I appreciate the fact that San Fancisco is banning plastic grocery bags. Can we do it nationally! Please? I mean, what is the deal that we have to use petroleum for our bags, packaging, everyday items, etc.? No wonder the price of oil is so expensive...we are consuming it for far more things than just putting gas into a vehicle.

So...that is my blog for today. I'm trying to de-plastic my life. I started today by picking up a second hand glass mixing bowl to replace a plastic one. The plastic cups will go soon, also. Of course, my worry is where they will go?

S~