Beluga Whales are now getting BREAST CANCER…

because of the senseless waste (plastic bottles, cigarette lighters, toxins, etc) that we’re putting into our oceans and streams.  The same flame retardants (dioxide, DDTs, toxins, super-toxins) that we (mis)use everyday (that cause some of us to get cancers) are now affecting marine life because we simply just do not care, or worse – we’re ignorant of the fact.  There’s more “plastic” than plankton in the Pacific & Atlantic Oceans.  I feel horrible (but is that enough?) that my species – the human being – has cause another species to have breast cancer.  Now one must think; if my “garbage waste” can cause an aquatic mammal to have breast cancer, what am I consuming???

There’s a “trash-patch” in the Pacific Ocean that’s twice the size of Texas (and runs 90 feet deep) floating  and spanning between California and Japan…can you imagine???

“You wouldn’t let your child taste the chemicals stored underneath your kitchen sink, so why would you put these chemicals in a waste-stream to have our fish ingest them, and then put that fish on our plate to eat?”   – Jacques Fabian Cousteau (grandson of famed marine researcher Jacques-Yves Cousteau)

Now get this:  Cruise Ships (just imagine their waste) are “legally” allowed to dump grabage waste into the ocean.  WHAT?????  Yes, there’s no law stating that they cannot throw their garbage overboard.  That’s cruise ships and every other boat/ship out there on the oceanways.  AND – that accounts for only 20% of the waste issue…80% of the ocean’s trash-patch comes from land.

Unfortunately, there’s absolutely NOTHING we can do about the trash-patches in our oceans, plastic does not biodegrade but it photodegrades – breaks down by light.  This makes the issue more complex, because it’s easier to pick up a 2 -litter plastic bottle out of the ocean than it is to pick up plastic confetti.  However, we cannot go out with giant nets to pick up trash in our ocean.  Besides the enormity of the job (how do we get our heads around one garbage-patch out of thousands ”twice the size of Texas”?), aquatic wildlife is all mixed in the debris now.  Experts say all we can do is stop putting more of it in, and that means redesigning our relationship with plastic.  Fair warning – plastic is not the enemy…we are!

PLEASE: Let’s recycle, reuse, and rethink our relationship with plastic, other “beings”, oceans, and of course our Earth!