Attended the “Sea of Consequence” talk by Save Our Shores (SOS) at the Museum of art and History in downtown Santa Cruz last week.
Emily Granville, Save Our Shores educator, gave this attentive group a startling look at where American’s relationship with plastic is headed. (Not long term-maybe terminal-was my take-away from this talk)
- At any given time, about 3 million tons of trash can be found floating off the California Coast
- 80% of floating ocean trash is plastic
- 80% of plastic pollution that enters the ocean originated from a land-based source
- SOS tracking data shows that from June 2007 – March 2010 SOS volunteers have removed over 19,887 plastic bags during beach and river cleanups
- There is no known life cycle for plastic (Translate: Plastic is forever)