{"id":1029,"date":"2010-11-01T20:46:54","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T03:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ensobottles.com\/blog\/?p=1029"},"modified":"2012-06-29T21:44:56","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T21:44:56","slug":"the-oceans-plastic-garbage-a-serious-environmental-hazard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/?p=1029","title":{"rendered":"The Ocean\u2019s Plastic Garbage \u2013 A Serious Environmental Hazard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our world\u2019s oceans are home to five growing plastic gyres \u2013 vortexes of swirling ocean currents filled with degrading plastic that pose a serious threat to marine life.<\/p>\n

Captain Charles Moore<\/span><\/a><\/span>,<\/span> noted author and oceanographer, has spent years conducting ocean and coastal samplings documenting plastic fragments along the 40,000 miles of the North Pacific Ocean. Captain Moore was the first to discover the Great Pacific Garbage Patch<\/a><\/span>, otherwise known as the Pacific Gyre, which lies in the northern Pacific near Hawaii. This is the largest of the known gyres – roughly 12,400 square miles in size and growing \u2013 and filled with swirling fragmented colorful plastic debris.<\/p>\n

Plastic in the ocean takes roughly 600 years to degrade fully. Marine life like sharks, dolphins, whales and numerous species of fish mistake these colorful remnants of our castoff trash as food, often suffering starvation due to the trash being indigestible. Oddly, it\u2019s only the colored plastic they go for, though the clear plastic is also hazardous. Plastic water bottles are regularly found tangled in ocean coral, littering the ocean floor.<\/p>\n

Plastic garbage doesn\u2019t just stay in the ocean. Storms periodically break gyres up, pushing waves of trash onto beaches around the globe. Hawaii\u2019s Kamilo Beach<\/a><\/span> is frequently known as Plastic Beach due to its continually being overrun with plastic trash brought in by the ocean\u2019s waves.<\/p>\n

This plastic comes in all sizes and forms – discarded toothbrushes, combs, cups and, of course, plastic water bottles. Plastic trash discarded in Asia and Europe makes its way to the ocean, gets caught in the Indian Ocean gyre, then gets pushed back again to litter the once pristine shoreline.<\/p>\n

We use 2 million plastic beverage bottles every 5 minutes in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is (looking) at it as a global phenomena and at the root causes (to) try to make it stop,\u201d said Cecilia Nord, Vice President \u2013 Floor Care Sustainability and Environmental Affairs of Swedish-based Electrolux<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to make it stop,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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\"\"\u201cOnly we humans make waste that Nature can\u2019t digest,\u201d says Moore.<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n

ENSO Bottles<\/span><\/a> realizes that what\u2019s needed is a shift in thinking as well as action.\u00a0\u00a0By creating\u00a0their innovative biodegradable plastic<\/a><\/span> bottle with\u00a0the ENSO additive, these PET-based bottles\u00a0break down, rather than contribute to the\u00a0world’s plastic pollution. It’s part of ENSO’s commitment “to act as environmental stewards.”<\/p>\n

With plastic trash increasing the world over, and the devastating effect this has on marine life,\u00a0it’s crucial for consumers\u00a0to become responsible stewards who take on recycling to a level not seen before is needed.<\/p>\n

Individuals doing their part can make the difference.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our world\u2019s oceans are home to five growing plastic gyres \u2013 vortexes of swirling ocean currents filled with degrading plastic that pose a serious threat to marine life. Captain Charles Moore, noted author and oceanographer, has spent years conducting ocean and coastal samplings documenting plastic fragments along the 40,000 miles of the North Pacific Ocean. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[737,3,246,739],"tags":[194,931,932,74,933,430,934,935,928,936,930,150,58,937,938],"class_list":["post-1029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biodegradation-2","category-latest-blogs","category-plastic-news","category-recycling-2","tag-biodegradable-plastic","tag-captain-charles-moore","tag-electrolux","tag-environmental","tag-global","tag-great-pacific-garbage-patch","tag-gyres","tag-innovative","tag-marine-life","tag-nature","tag-oceans","tag-pet","tag-plastic","tag-plastic-beach","tag-recyclling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1029"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1858,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions\/1858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}