To: President Donald Trump, Governor Gavin Newsom, and The United States Senate
Ban Plastic Bags on The West Coast
By polluting plastic and trash, humans have created the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Sign this petition and start taking steps to reverse the damage we have done.
Why is this important?
Watch the video to see how you can help!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-Pc8xtfqOI
The Great Pacific Garbage patch is essentially an area of plastic and debris in the ocean between California and Hawaii. The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre captures plastic and other debris. A gyre is a large system of rotating currents, essentially like a toilet.
A common misconception about the garbage patch is that it is literally an island made of trash floating on the surface of the water. In reality, it is like a galaxy, made up of billions of tiny pieces of plastics that can be deep underwater or on the surface, spread out over many miles. Even though this giant garbage patch is not visible through satellite imagery, many tests have been done to determine it to be around twice the size of Texas, and growing. The volume of plastic debris has increased by 100 times over the past 40 years, according to a study from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.
The debris concentrated in this area causes a multitude of long and short-term problems, harming the marine life and releasing chemicals into the ocean. Many fish and other organisms mistake the colorful bits of plastic for food. Researchers estimate that fish living at intermediate ocean depths in that region ingest between 12,000 and 24,000 tons of plastic each year. Once ingested, the plastic travels through the food chain, harmfully affecting ocean birds and other large marine wildlife. The debris ingested causes starvation, choking, and other impairments. In the Great Pacific Ocean Gyre there is 6 times more plastic than plankton, which the main food for many ocean animals
The trash we produce on land accounts for around 80 percent of debris found in the Garbage Patch. Around 65 percent of that is “consumer used plastics that has not been disposed of properly”. The rest comes from recreational boaters, offshore oil rigs, and large cargo ships.
Start taking steps to reduce ocean pollution TODAY!