Plastics Invading Our Oceans
BY CHERYL HURDSurfing conjures up images of free spirits, at one with the ocean, without a care in the world. But for Surf Lady Veronica Grey, it is the world she so desperately cares about.
About a year ago, the waves called to Grey. Although the California actress and filmmaker did not know at the time, the message they carried for her, that day would change her life. She lay belly down on her surfboard and paddled her way to depths beyond the breaking waves, where she would wait for the perfect ride. On this day, the rhythm of stroke meeting ocean was interrupted. She plunged her hand into the water, and then recoiled. Between her fingers dripped a slimy substance.
“I remember the first time I felt it. I was paddling out on my board and noticed a mushy, plastic-like substance sliding through my fingers. It was gross,” she recalled, “and that’s what started my obsession with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”
The patch is located between Hawaii and California in the northern Pacific Ocean, where millions of small bits of plastic have gathered in a vortex of ocean currents known as a gyre. There are five of these gyres in our oceans around the world. Grey said that 15 years ago the one in the Pacific was about the size of Texas, and now is estimated to be closer to the size of the United States.
“It’s sort of depressing facing what is really happening to our planet,” she said, explaining that an estimated 25 percent of our planet is now covered with trash.
Since the areas in the oceans where the trash collects are so remote, people tend to not think about it. “It’s a silent, deadly killer and the problem is very scary,” she continued.
Grey, who surfs about twice a week, said while currents and winds may collect the plastics in these gyres, the plastic has infiltrated every part of the ocean. She said scientists estimate there are 46,000 pieces of plastic in every square mile of ocean. She finds plastic around her each time she enters the water.
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