Way back when I heard a story on NPR about a huge floating island of trash that can be found somewhere way out in the Pacific Ocean. A strange mixture of wind and water currents have brought together a huge amount of the world’s trash, stuff that has been dumped off boats, that is washed out of cities, that makes up the day to day detritus of modern living. These colossal spreads of trash collect in places called gyres. (yes, I had to look that up…but what a good one for your next party conversation).
That is what came to mind when I read this piece over at the Arizona Star where writer Chris Welsch investigated a huge amount of trash he found washed up on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
We are talking a lot of stuff, far more than you might expect to be in such a remote place. And no ,it wasn’t the result of a U2 concert or some such thing taking place the day before. The trash here, much like the stuff I heard in that NPR story, came from all over the world. Water bottles, milk crates, fishing buoys, netting, plastic bags, a barrel-size clump of orange plastic rope and, scattered everywhere, a fine confetti of broken-up plastic chips…all from far off and distant locales like Mexico, the continental United States, Alaska, Taiwan, Japan and China.
It’s a sad tale, but I have a hard time imagining how you solve a problem like this, especially with places like India and China growing so quickly. It seems like we’re doomed to see more trash rather than less over the coming years. But maybe there is a great opportunity here for some enterprising young person to come up with a kind of massive water strainer, or a satellite-based trash incinerator. Just thinking out loud here.
Anyway, this is one of those stories that, along with the recent news of global warming, makes you feel rather down on the whole human race and what we’re don to this pale blue dot we call home.