Called To Action by a Turtle

The sight of a turtle deformed by plastic inspired Rebeca Burgos to begin recycling in earnest. PHOTO BY RON PRENDERGRAST

Activism calls each of us in different ways. For Orange Country resident Rebeca Burgos, the sight of a turtle deformed by consuming plastics inspired her to reuse and recycle plastic and cans. A plastic band stuck on the animal's body forced its shell into an hourglass shape. This was Rebeca's call to action. She now collects plastics and brings them to the local recycling center.

Some call it recycling. For Rebeca, it's preventing sea turtles and seabirds from having their stomachs filled with plastic, and saving their lives.

Plastic trash in the Pacific Ocean reaching Southern California's coastal area comes from all over the world, from as far away as Japan.

In an area in the North Pacific known as Great Pacific Garbage Patch the amount of plastic trash covers an area twice the size of Texas. Among the debris there are all sorts of plastic objects, fishing nets, tons of cigarette butts, even traffic cones. Today we have over one hundred million tons of trash in the oceans.

Fishing nets and plastic are the biggest villains: fishing nets kill lots of sea animals, who get entangled in the web or have their skin totally cut, dying or losing their ability to hunt. The debris end up in the ocean because of trash that is thrown overboard from boats and ships, or left on the beach by beachgoers and trash that comes through waterways. Top of the list: cigarette butts, plastic bags, food wrappers and containers.

But among all the trash that end up in the ocean (and in landfills, too) plastic is by far the worst: it is supposed that plastic can take between 500 to 1000 years to decompose, and scientists are not even sure about these numbers, because our experience with plastic is not much longer than half a century.

There are a few things you can do to help reduce the plastic problem, though:

Try to use less plastic.

It seems quite obvious, but sometimes we don't notice how much we are wasting. For example, when you pack your sandwich lunch, try to re-use the ziplock bag again. Besides saving you money, reusing means one less piece of plastic thrown away. You can reuse the same ziplock plastic bag a good few times.

Reusable cloth shopping bag.

Organize a cleanup for a beach, park or pond.

Reduce the use of plastic in your workplace.

Beth Terry, from Oakland, has a blog where she describes how she started un-plasticizing her workplace. She started from changing the plastic silverware for stainless steel ones. Then, bringing her own glass instead of using a plastic cup. If you would like to see more of Beth's ideas for the workplace, visit her blog at http://www.fakeplasticfish.com/2007/08/reducing-plastic-waste-in-workplace.html.

Save the plastic objects that have a recyclable stamp on them and take them to the local recycling center.