That's 6,613,868 Lbs for you Yanks.


International coastal cleanup nets three million kilograms of trash
Most common item found? Cigarette butts
Brian Skoloff, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
11 March 2009 09:12:03



WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - About three million kilograms of debris was collected from waterways and shorelines around the world during a single day last year, illustrating that careless people are discarding trash just about everywhere, with much of it eventually finding an aquatic home, according to a report released Tuesday.

Nearly 400,000 volunteers scoured about 27,000 kilometres of coastline, river bottoms and ocean floors during the Ocean Conservancy's 23rd International Coastal Cleanup in September.

The group's report said more than 3.2 million cigarette butts were picked up during last year's efforts, making the items the most common found. That's followed by about 1.4 million plastic bags, 942,000 food wrappers and containers, and 937,000 caps and lids. Volunteers also collected 26,585 tires, enough for 6,646 cars - and a spare.

Of the 104 participating countries, the U.S. supplied about half the volunteers.

Volunteers collected about 11.4 million items overall, which weighed a total of about three million kilograms. They snagged more than 1.3 million cigarette butts in the U.S. alone, about 19,500 fishing nets in the United Kingdom and more than 11,000 diapers in the Philippines.

"Our ocean is sick, and our actions have made it so," said Vikki Spruill, the Ocean Conservancy's president and CEO. "The evidence turns up every day in dead and injured marine life, littered beaches that discourage tourists, and choked ocean ecosystems."

The group said thousands of marine mammals, sea turtles and birds are injured or killed by ocean trash every year. During the event, participants found 268 marine animals that survived being entangled in debris. But 175 weren't so lucky and died - a seal wrapped in fishing line near Santa Cruz, Calif.; a juvenile hammerhead shark entangled in fishing line near St. Augustine, Fla.; a sea turtle tangled in rope in the west African nation of Ghana; and a penguin entangled in wire in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The majority of trash, the report said, comes from land-based activities, such as discarding of fast food wrappers during beach picnics.

"Your trash may make it to the beach before you do this year," the report said, adding that a wrapper or cigarette butt discarded on an inland city street can quickly wash down storm drains into rivers and eventually flow out to the ocean.

The next cleanup is set for Sept. 19.

On The Net:

Ocean Conservancy: http://www.oceanconservancy.org

Human life is more important than animal life.

i realize you're being sarcastic, but i agree with that statement, but it's all measured in degrees and not absolute.

True, but we're all connected.

Any cost in animal life is justified by the smallest of human conveniences or pleasures.

I hate people who aren't bothered to throw something in a trash can.

And I liked seeing Ed pick up his cigarette butt from the ground on Immagine in Cornice. You don't see a lot of people do that.

We're animals.

groetjes,
Mirella

yes, we're animals, but we're the best animals, so we matter more.

Yeah, it is gross. How hard is it to wait until you get home and not throw something out the car window.

dude, who cares? humans are lazy. deal with it. it's not like it's going to matter much, in 500 million years earth will be uninhabitable.

But it annoys me right now.

why?

Because although all suffering will be meaningless when time has ended it still means something now. Plus it is disgusting.

how much does it mean right now, though? should we focus our energy on oceanic life or on real human beings?

and just because something is disgusting doesn't make it wrong. i think sardines are disgusting yet lenny eats those all the time and there is nothing wrong with that.

I agree.

Sometimes, just for fun, i like to go to McDonalds and eat a 20 pack of nuggets. Then'll i'll race to the ocean as fast as i can and take a big greasy McShit right there on the shoreline. Then i'll take my McGarbage and ram it down the throat of a seal and then club it's babies to death. That's the kinda guy MF is.

You can focus your energies on whatever you wish. I don't really care. As you said, in the end none of it will mean anything, right?

I just don't see why it is so difficult for people to take almost next to no effort to dispose of stuff properly