Cheers Kim

You are also more that welcome to embed the video. Thank you for asking, and thank you so much for helping us spread this message!

But still, thanks for sharing this. I will share it with as many people as I can. Not sure what emotion is stronger, paralyzing fear or the urgency to do something

Chris Jordan I heard about your work in my high school class English B 10 we have been able to learn things that never even struck our minds. We have watched many of your videos and looked at almost all your pictures. Your words have stained my brain and I myself really want to pull our world together. Thank you

Thank you for doing the work that you do. It is vitally important. In case you don’t know, you were featured this morning on The Online Photographer (http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html) specifically discussing this work with albatross carcasses.

I don’t know what else to say except “Thank you,” and also “I am sorry.”

Thanks for asking, and thanks for linking. Thank you also for your blog post.

I like where you describe that man throwing garbage into the river in Taiwan and what you felt when you saw it. I’ve been feeling very angry too.

However I am not more angry at dirty people than I am angry at clean people. In fact my anger is not specific. It’s general. It is directed at us for being addicted to disposable habits, but also to those who have made a business out the generation of waste.

It is important to understand that the plastic in the gyre is not a problem of disposal. It is a problem of design. It makes no sense whatsoever to use a material meant to last forever in the environment to manufature disposable products and packaging that we use for a few seconds, minutes or days. This has to stop and we need to urgently rethink the way plastics are used in our society.

So… here’s the Single-Use Plastic Emergency Response (S.U.P.E.R.) Hero Pledge
 
to use the “4 Rs” of Sustainable Consumption in the following order of preference:
 
• REFUSE:  Stop using single-use and disposable plastics like bags and bottles, straws, cups, plates, silverware and razors.  Instead, bring your own shopping and produce bags to the market. Carry a reusable bottle with you for drinking on the go. Skip the straw. (Plastic straws are for suckers!) Bring your own containers for take-out or ask for non-plastic disposable packaging.
•  REDUCE waste: Choose products with the least packaging, look for products and packaging made from renewable resources, and avoid plastic packaging. Choose products that have the least amount of disposable parts, like razors with replaceable blades and toothbrushes with replaceable brushes.    
•  REUSE containers: Reuse preferably nontoxic containers and goods to make less waste.  Bad habits are disposable, containers are reusable. 
• RECYCLE: Recycle what you can’t refuse, reduce or reuse. Recycling is a last option because it uses energy, and there may not be a market for the refabricated materials.

Become a S.U.P.E.R. Hero!

may i use this (http://chrisjordan.com/images/home/1255651239.jpg)
image to link here(http://chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=11) on
my blog (http://www.samtseng.liho.tw/~samtz/blog/?p=3027)? please tell
me. thanks in advances.

best, sam

Civilization will eventually have to live without plastic when the world runs out of oil. So we should start now to develop alternatives for plastic consumables and preserve what we can of the remaining oil for plastic durable goods that may not be possible to produce in another media. There is a lot to learn from our past without plastic.

“Even the shortest stroll on any one of Victoria’s beaches will reveal that British Columbia’s beauty and cleanliness is being diminished by the astonishing amount of plastic garbage that ends up in the oceans every year. Almost 90% of marine litter is plastic; a product that scientists say takes 400 to 1,000 years to break down. This means that almost every piece of plastic ever made still exists in one form or another.

I could bombard you with frightening facts about how the chemicals added to plastics are carcinogenic and disrupt the endocrine system, or how 10’s of thousands of seabirds get tangled in plastic debris and at least 100,000 seals, sea lions, whales, dolphins and sea turtles have suffered the same fate. I could mention the Great Garbage Patch, a region in the North Pacific larger than our province where there are 100s of thousands of plastic fragments per square kilometer, or how 500 billion plastic bags are manufactured each year, but these numbers are so vast they boggle the imagination and seems to create a form of paralysis in people.

The best way to illustrate the magnitude of the problem and to understand how it affects all of us is to go for a walk on the beach and to closely observe what lays tangled beneath your feet. The larger pieces stand out but the closer you look the more tiny particles you see. These are consumed by organisms and make their way up the food chain.

In the last 5 years I have picked up hundreds of garbage bags of plastics and styrofoams from Victoria area beaches. Certain beaches collect more debris than others. Whiffen Spit in Sooke and Trial Island off the coast of Oak Bay are particularly effective collection beaches and in a way they represent opportunities. The ocean is regurgitating and returning to us our waste so that we can deal with it. By focusing on these collection beaches we can make a significant contribution to ameliorating the problem.

But whose responsibility is it? Neither the federal, provincial or municipal governments take responsibility, while the vast majority of individuals blithely walk right over the trash. We are becoming conditioned to accepting plastics as a natural fixture of flotsam and jetsam.

My motivation is personal. In particular I care about the effects plastics have on animals, but it was pointed out to me that I am contributing to the social capital, making the beaches better for everyone. Mostly it is a lonely experience and though there is some satisfaction generated, to return a few months later and find the beach soiled once again is quite demoralizing. In short, I can’t do it all myself and I need your help. You can contribute by using less plastic, ensuring any plastic you do use is recycled, and by picking up any plastics you see that have escaped the waste stream.

Alexander Pope said, “Do good by stealth, and blush to call it fame.” I embrace this perspective but there comes a time when a warning cry has to be shouted from the rooftops. I’m shouting now. For our children’s sake we have to end the environmental vandalism our culture has embraced and to get on with becoming Earth’s stewards, the most important mission humankind has ever undertaken. It starts with you. It starts today. Go to any beach on the South Island and begin to lead by example. We can’t afford to wait. Do it now.

Mike Robinson
Trial Island Lightstation
Victoria BC