Save the Oceans

1200 MILES AWAY FROM CIVILIZATION BIRDS DIE FROM EATING MAN-MADE PLASTIC ​

Midway Island is more than 2,400 miles away from a large land mass (Alaska) and more than 1,000 miles away from a city (Honolulu). It seems that if any place would be safe from the environmental affects of humanity, this would be it!

And yet, due to the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Midway is mired in plastic trash. ​ The main occupant of Midway Island is the majestic Albatross, a Sea Bird with a wingspan of over 7 feet. The albatross spends most of its time flying over the ocean in search of food. Unfortunately, the birds quite often mistake plastic in the ocean for food. A pair of albatrosses will only lay one egg each year.

Currently over 40% of the babies hatched out on Midway Island are fed enough plastic that they die a very slow and painful death as the plastics poison their system and cause dehydration and starvation. According to wildlife biologist John Klavitter, Albatrosses are feeding their babies more than 5 tons of plastic on Midway Island each year! ​

If you were to visit Midway Island, you would find hundreds of carcasses that were once beautiful baby albatrosses – now nothing left but feathers, bone and plastic!

THIS WEEK OVER 1,923 MARINE MAMMALS AND SEA TURTLES WILL BE KILLED – and over 19,230 Sea Birds will be dead as well! ​

Did you know that halfway between California and Hawaii is a FLOATING PATCH OF PLASTIC GARBAGE that, by the latest estimates, has grown to 1 1⁄2 times the size of the continental United States? It is estimated to be 90 feet deep. ​

Unbelievable right? And it is actually one of five giant floating Garbage Patches in the world’s oceans! It turns out that when opposing currents collide, they form swirling vortexes called GYRES, where trash in the ocean is deposited. ​

So how does the plastic trash enter the ocean? Scientists believe that over 80% of the trash comes from people leaving it on the beach or from trash thrown into storm drains.

These “Garbage Patches” are affecting all levels of life in the ocean! Plastic, which never breaks down, is consumed by sea creatures and is killing more than 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles and over one million sea birds each year! ​

Estimates suggest that there are now 6 times more plastic particles than plankton in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. ​ Plankton is actually the basic building block of the oceans and where the food chain begins.

56% of the oxygen that we breathe actually comes from Phyto- plankton.

• All 5 of the Ocean's Gyres are filling with Plastic Trash- over 80% comes from Land- trash left on the beach or storm drains.
• Over time, plastic breaks into particles that become incorporated into the food chain.
• Plankton is the basic building block of the ocean so now anything that previously ate plankton is now eating plastic!
• There are now 6 times more plastic particles than plankton in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. 56% of the oxygen we breath come from plankton in the ocean!