[SustainableTompkins] Pacific Trash Vortex

[Andy Bailey Goodell]

Re: the "Pacific Trash Vortex"

This link
(http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-oceans/oce
an_pollution_animation) shows a decent animation showing where all this ends
up. It's amazing when you realize what "throwing out" actually means. Either
it goes into some capped landfill where it will almost never decompose, or
in this case it goes out to sea. The day I truly understood what happens to
trash (i.e. it doesn't just "go away!"), I stopped buying anything thought
of as disposable. I read an article in the magazine called GOOD about
someone doing a 'trash audit' to document how much trash they go through
each week. They took a picture of it for 52 weeks, but they weren't throwing
out much to begin with, so the reduction I was expecting to see didn't show
well. Now if only 6 billion people realized it...

Andy Goodell
(603) 831-0356