S.O.S. from Greenpeace

Message in a Bottle: an appeal from the ship Esperanza, as it moves through the trash vortex of the Pacific Ocean. This is part of the message sent to Greenpeace supporters on November 7, while many of us were focused on the U.S. elections:

"Throughout this trip, we’ve been taking samples of ocean water, and what we’ve discovered is as if a bomb exploded millions of pieces of plastic that rained down on the Pacific. But this is no bomb. It's not a storm that caused this. We did. All of us. With every piece of trash we've seen, but haven't picked up, every water bottle we've bought, but didn't recycle. It's all here, floating in front of me, the evidence of millions of moments of lapsed judgement, all combined into one heaping mess. It's overwhelming." -- Marie Jorgensen

Read more at Greenpeace, and watch the ship tour video. Also learn about the semester program for student activists.

The fate of plastic in the oceans has long been an issue of concern. See, for example, this 1989 report from the Alaska Sea Grant College Program:
Persistent marine debris : challenge and response

and dozens of articles published in Marine Pollution Bulletin since its inception in 1970. Published by Elsevier, you may search journal contents and view abstracts for free on Elsevier's ScienceDirect. Obtain full-text of articles published since 1995 on the OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center.