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.

More Crap Washing Up on the Beach

I'm preparing to head out to the beaches this summer (training sessions soon) with my fellow Beach Naturalists, and I happen to come across this article.

Poison. My daughter already gets on my case for picking up every bit of trash I see on the beach (calls me the bag lady), but I can't help it . I've seen how this stuff kills. However, maybe I should bring some gloves, just in case.


Photo from the Seattle Times

Ah, a woman after my own heart

I grew up in Everett, and so often peruse the Everett Herald, when I came across this article.

I often drive my daughter crazy when we go on beach walks, either out at Ocean Shores or on my adoptive beach over at Des Moines, where I volunteer during the summer. I pick up garbage, no matter how small at every opportunity, when I do a beach stroll, or even on a dog walk.

Apparently, I'm not the only one with this fetish.

Photo courtesy of the Everett Herald