Garbage Island

[roofless]

shocking report from the pacific

VBS CORRESPONDENT THOMAS MORTON

Before this trip, I was never all that crazy about the ocean. I’ve always appreciated the fact that it generates the majority of the world’s oxygen and keeps us nice and far from places like Britain, but in terms of any sort of awe or “respect” it just never happened. I would say I looked at it less as the primeval womb of all terrestrial life than as an excessive amount of water you sometimes have to fly over.

Part and parcel with this was my attitude toward the Pacific Garbage Patch, or as we willfully misidentified it for the duration of our journey, the elusive Garbage Island. All the journalism I’d read about the patch had carefully danced around physical descriptions of the trash, leading myself and the rest of the shooting crew to fanciful visions of a solid, Texas-size barge of discarded Coke bottles and sporting goods. The idea that people had managed to f*ck up a part of the world that nobody even visits, much less inhabits, and on such a monumental scale struck me as interesting and, to be honest, slightly awesome-sounding, but at the end of the day the impact of the mess on the rest of the world failed to register. I mean, sure, sea birds choking to death on deflated balloons and sea turtles whose shells have been completely deformed by soda can rings (click here for a picture of this if you want to completely ruin your day)—all this definitely sucks, but so do a lot of things, you know?

Needless to say this whole journey ended up overturning my expectations about the Garbage Patch, as well as just about every misconception I’ve ever held about the sea, environmentalism, consumption, barfing, knots, pollution, humanity, and myself. After absorbing the myriad dangers of our plastic-heavy lifestyles for three weeks, I’m now a proud, carbon-conscious “Earth Warrior” who yells at grocery clerks for double-bagging my produce and carries around one of those 70s gunnysacks to drink out of. Just kidding, although the trip did lead me to ferret out a group of non-hippie environmentalists who you can read about here. I also finally got into Earth Crisis. Pretty decent.

Watch the video here: TOXIC* - GARBAGE ISLAND - VBS.TV

[SlvrDragon50]

That picture of the turtle is pretty crazy...

[roofless]

Originally Posted by SlvrDragon50

That picture of the turtle is pretty crazy...

Took me a sec to figure out what part of the coke bottle that was, but it's the little ring that stays on after you unscrew the cap. Who knew it could be so harmful?

[Empacher]

pretty powerful videos

[harb99]

one word - SAD....

[DevilDiver]

This has been all over the fringe of the news but can't seen to make any real headlines. Sad..... I guess if you don't have a Hollywood Bimbo stumbling out of a club without her panties on you really don't get any attention.

(Not that I am against Hollywood Bimbos or pro panties but come on........)

[NeveSSL]

Holy cow... how in the world did that poor turtle grow like that? That is insane.

I often think about how many things have been ruined that my grandfather got to enjoy. Then I realize that one day some of what he now enjoy may be ruined and we'll consider today the good ole days.

Brandon

[Daved]

Thats a real picture--not photo Shopped? Wow--very very sad.

[roofless]

Clip 10 of 12 does a really good job of showing and explaining how all of the plastics, when they begin to break down, become a confetti of little small pieces that are mixed the food chain with other sea life, plankton, etc.

TOXIC* - GARBAGE ISLAND - Part*10*of*12 - VBS.TV

There's no "money shot" of a huge swath of immediately visible debris, but upon skimming the water for test samples, what they find is much much worse.

If you don't watch all parts, 10 of 12 gives a good summarization.

[BuzzF117]

I couldn't get past all the swearing so I stopped watching. Anybody can swear but it takes some intelligence to get your point accross using language correctly. I prob would enjoy a documentary on the subject. Somebody could prob make huge $$ if the could figure an effective way to remove the stuff from the water.