Plastic Bags, the True Evil? Or is it that water bottle you're holding?

I read with interest Danny Westneat's column in the Seattle Times yesterday. It's about a garbologist (flotsam guy) and oceanographer, talking about the impact of pastic bags and Mayor Nickels effort to tax them out of existance.

It's not the pastic bags, according to Curt Ebbesmeyer, that are in that swirling mess outside of Hawaii, or in the stomachs of birds which starve to death, but chips of pastic that come from computer monitors, from wrapping from plastic bottles.

I plan show this to my daughter, next time she rolls her eyes as I start picking up garbage on the beach, whether I have my beach naturalist hat on or not.

My daughter refuses to go for walks on the beach with me, to which I say, oh well..

On of the reasons is exemplified by this camera phone snap of this moon jelly, taken this summer.

The aurelia labiata floats along and often washes up on Puget Sound shores, but before it does that, it's a favorite snack of turtles, some birds. Unfortunately plastic bags floating in the water look very similar to these creatures.

I'm still a bit haunted by the National Geographic picture of a juvenile bird, living in some far off island chain, that starved to death because of the plastic lodged in its stomach.

Soo, I pic up garbage on the beach, the Safeway bags, the fishing line, the six pack tops, the yogurt containers and the pull tabs.

Mooom! That's the sound of my daughter walking behind me, asking me to please stop picking up the trash. I won't stop. I know it's embrassing to her, but well, she'll get over it.