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A little-known island continent of floating toxic plastic garbage, TWICE the size of Texas, is growing in the pacific between California and Hawaii. Officially known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is still completely ignored by U.S. officials. In the past 50 years it has grown 1000 times, and continues to grow until we stop using plastics. The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii.
In the Great Pacific Garbage Patch it is said that there is a ratio of 6 to 1 plastics over plankton.
Plankton is the number one food source for fish and they mistaken the tiny plastic pellets that have broken down due to the Sun and eat them. Eventually, we fish these plastic eating fish and the plastics return right back into our diet!
Plastics, like diamonds, are forever.
Plastic floating in the
ocean is the number one source of pollution of the world ocean.
80% of marine debris comes from land and 20% from boats.
The problem is many marine birds, turtles and fish confuse floating plastic particles with food.
Plastic does not biodegrade, it photo-degrades, or slowly breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, but still remains a polymer. And plastic has been proven to absorb toxins up to one million times background levels in ambient seawater, making the floating plastic a poison pill. Because of their buoyancy and persistance, most of the debris that either entangles sea creatures or found in their stomachs, is made of plastic.
1. Keep your trash off the street and out of the
storm drains so they don’t end up in the ocean. EVERYTHING ENDS UP IN THE OCEAN!
2. Overwatering is wasteful. It moves trash and toxins into the ocean. Turn the water off when not using it, fix leaky pipes and conserve our water supply.
3. Throw away your balloons. All released helium balloons eventually pop and fall back down to Earth and end up in the ocean where animals mistaken it for food. Always pop balloons and put them in the trash.
4. Beware of Six Pack Rings! Cut them up before throwing them out. Marine animals choke on then and get tangled in them. Unlike us, they don't have hands to remove them from around their necks.
5. Use Non-Toxic! Try not to buy products like liquid drain openers, don't use pesticides, and always look for non-toxic alternatives.
6. Sack
the Plastic Bags. Instead of taking plastic bags at the grocery store, bring your own bag.
Plastic bags create loads of unnecessary litter; they are easily blown by
the wind, and they often end up in the ocean. Plastic takes hundreds of
years to biodegrade, and creates hazards for marine life and other
wildlife.
7. Recycle Used Motor Oil. You can recycle your used motor oil at gas stations, auto parts stores, and garages. Never pour it down the drain, in the gutter, or on the ground. Motor oil is extremely toxic.
8. Recycle your cell phones
1. Green printing means leaving zero footprint on the environment.
2. A ton of recycled paper equals a ton of new paper. No need to cut virgin wood.
3. 100% Chlorine processed free paper. When paper is bleached with chlorine and chlorine compounds releases a huge amount of toxic compounds into the water.
One in particular is called DIOXIN and it is a human carcinogen!
4. Switching over to recycled wood emits 13% less carbon dioxide.
5. Switching over to recycled wood means 35% less trees are cut.
6. For every ton of recycled paper that displaces a ton of non-recycled paper saves up to 25 mature trees, 10,000 gallons of water and 2200 pounds of green house gases.
7. Vegetable and soy based inks use less than 5% of VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds). They are all renewable resources, unlike petroleum based inks.
Resulting in easier inking techniques and brighter colors without polluting the waterways. Also vegetable and soy based inks don't contain metals such as mercury, lead or cadmium which are used to make bright colors.
8. Biodegradable glue is a biggy! I think the name says it all.
9. If some printing does require virgin wood it should only be from forests that are certified by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council).
The FSC is an international organization promoting responsible management of the world’s forests, outlawing forest destruction and promoting replanting, and they are the leading certifier of sustainable timber.
10. Recycled paper production saves trees, energy and water, produces less pollution, uses more benign chemicals, and requires less bleaching than virgin paper production. It also solves a community disposal problem.
So tell your bookstores, your favorite authors, and publishers you want to read books only on 100% recyclable, 100% post-consumer waste and 100% processed chlorine free (PCW/PCF) paper!
FAQ's
1. What is eco publishing?
Eco publishing, eco printing, and green printing all stand for the same concept: TO LEAVE ZERO FOOTPRINT ON THE ENVIRONMENT!
2. Isn't all paper used these days recycled?
Only about 10% of printing and writing paper for the entire market is recycled. And even those papers are full of virgin materials.
More than 90% of the paper is virgin materials, and the main reason why is because consumers believe that they don't have to ask for it, because the think that it already is.
If we don't voice it, the printing, publishing and paper industry will continue to cut down virgin forests and pollute our waterways!
TELL THEM WE WANT RECYCLED PAPER ONLY!
3. Doesn't recycling paper make the fibers too short for paper making?
Not at all. The fibers in paper can be recycled over a dozen times before they become too short.
Plus the amount of resources, water and energy saved decreases the strong footprint left on our environment by a 1000 times.
10 IMPACTS OF THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY AND PAPER MILLS ON OUR ENVIRONMENT
1. The publishing industry is #3 in the world to leave the largest footprint (loss of carbon dioxide storage) on the environment from pollution and deforestation.
2. Water is the main ingredient used in the process of making paper.
So much is used, that it is the largest consumer of water and is also the #1 polluter of water.
3. The paper industry is one of the most brutalest industries on our environment: cutting down trees, polluting the waterways, and eliminating wildlife habitats and ecosystems.
4. Paper and packaging are the #1 contributors to landfills. 26% of landfills is paper.
5. The US publishing industry alone emits 12.5 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. (8.85 pounds per book)
6. Deforestation is 25% of human caused CO2 emissions.
7. More than 20 million trees per year are cut down for books and more than 95 million trees per year are cut down for newsprint in the US alone.
8. Worldwide: over 400 billion trees are cut for paper consumption per year! That's over 40% of global industrial wood harvested for paper making.
9. An average paper mill uses enough energy to satisfy a town of 30,000 people. Think about that!
10. When paper degrades in landfills it emits methane gas, a greenhouse gas emission, which is 23 times more potent and harmful than carbon dioxide.
