Oceans awash in plastic junk

[jpak]

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/061128trash.html

Recent reports about pollutants and plastic trash flowing into the oceans do not surprise Sandra Wachholz in the least.

A criminology professor at the University of Southern Maine, Wachholz's unusual hobby has made her an expert on the subject. Wachholz collects litter from the shores of Casco Bay, both during her regular walks and sometimes after heavy rainstorms that wash debris out of Portland's sewers. And it's easy pickings, she said.

A recent one-hour expedition to Back Cove after a rainstorm produced hundreds of pieces of trash, including 179 pieces of Styrofoam cups, 135 plastic shards, 24 straws or plastic stirrers, six tampon applicators, five plastic grocery bags, two prescription pill bottles and three intact hypodermic syringes.

"I always find syringes," said Wachholz, who believes they are used for insulin injections and flushed into the sewers. "It's incredible what's happening to the oceans."

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[Sequoia]

1. "The sea is the universal sewer" Jacques Yves Cousteau

[IADEMO2004]

2. National Geographic Picture

I can't find a link and I need to leave, but it showed the stomach contents of a dead sea bird that had starved to death because it's stomach was full of all sorts of plastic. I'll look more tonight.