This article is by no means designed to point fingers or to blame anyone, I believe we all have a duty of care and equal responsibility to share in being conscious of the oceans welfare since we all have a share, need and reliance on our oceans.
Recently scientists totally underestimated the severity of rubbish polluting our oceans. We have 5 gyres in our oceans and these gyres are like large circular currents that provide continuing water flow, and the sea life and ecosystems within these area's rely on these moving currents.
And it's the north pacific gyre that is bearing the brunt of most of this rubbish.
The great pacific garbage patch is an enditement on our lack of respect for the ocean, a lack of knowledge and education, a lack of responsibility from our governments, and a lack of self awareness individually.
There are organisations that are doing a tremendous job in studying and cleaning up the rubbish that is floating in this north pacific gyre above Australia.
The estimated size of this garbage patch which comprises predominantly of plastic is the size of the state of Queensland in a Australia, or 7 times the size of Japan.
When boats pull up to these floating islands of plastic, they are completely distressed at how so much rubbish can so irresponsibly be tossed without thought of consequence.
AND WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CONSEQUENCES?
PLEASE BE AWARE AT THE CONTENT IN THESE PICTURE'S MIGHT BE DISTRESSING AND SHOULD BE VIEWED AT EACH PERSONS OWN DISCRETION.......
Sadly green turtles and logger head turtles are sesceptible out of curiosity and depletion of fish to becoming entangled in plastic and eating it.
Without human intervention this turtle would starve to death.
Our gentle hump back whales as they migrate from Antarctica north up the eastcoast of Australia to warmer waters to mate and breed also are entangled by discarded fishing nets. This is just totally irresponsible, these men that continually do this must be just stupid, the ocean is there livelyhood and they don't care if they ruin it.
This horrific picture shows you even water birds are not immune to our plastic. An Albatross is full of plastic.
SO IF WE DON'T CARE ABOUT OUR ENVIRONMENT,
DO WE CARE ABOUT OUR FOOD?
This Mahi Mahi, or dolphin fish in the top picture has swallowed plastic and was sick.
And the bottom picture is of a juvenile king fish with lots of little bits of plastic in its stomach.
And here comes the punch line, scientists say as the plastic breaks up into tiny nano particles every organism on the bottom of the food chain is ingesting the plastic and then the predators are consuming it in their diets and it's building.
And then we consume the seafood.
How much plasic are we eating?
How do you like your prawns sir, with a touch of formaldehyde?
How do you like your fish steamed with a side of plastic?
THE SPECIAL TONIGHT IS..
We have a seafood platter for two tonight, the lobster is done in a rich creamy white wine and garlic sauce and presented on a beautiful bed of graded plastic.
THIS PLASTIC CAN BE PICKED UP AND SEEN EASILY.
IT'S THE SMALL PARTICLES THAT SCIENTISTS ARE WORRIED ABOUT, BECAUSE THEY CAN'T BE SEEN.
A MAP OF THE LOCATION.
THIS IS A DENSITY SHOT OF PER SQUARE METER.
WHAT CAN WE DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
How often are you willing to pick up someone else's rubbish. Do you look and just walk past and reason to yourself that you're to busy to clean and it's not your responsibility.
Can we make it a project to pick up 5 pieces of rubbish a day. If not maybe we can set a side a time once a month to spend a solid hour picking up rubbish.
Its all in our mindset.
For instance I can be at the beach with the family and see rubbish and tell myself we're busy and there's nowhere to put it.
Or I can think to myself where will that plastic end up?
What animal will it effect, or what will it do to the environment?
With the bigger picture in mind I pick up the plastic and put it with our things to take away.
There are so many areas in our life we can look at, like our consumption of plastic, recycling, using alternatives to plastic bags. And many other things.
But it all starts with our mindset.
If we don't value or appreciate or even respect our environment around us then you're not going to make a conscious effort to live in harmony with it.
In some of the islands and lands where this plastic is washing up, it's effecting their livelyhoods and tourist income. Why should they have to pay for the lack of care from others.
So if you don't care about what you eat or about the animals, or even about the ocean itself.
Then maybe you might care about other people.
My guess is if you don't care about the environment then you're not going to care about people either.
It's time for change people, adjust your mindsets, before its to late.
Photos google stock.
Content by Sanddrift