Plans Underway For Pacific Clean-Up

The dutch have outdone themselves with this project to clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch of plastic debris:

Dutch prototype clean-up boom brings Pacific plastics solution a step closer

Boomy McBoomface

A bid to clear the Pacific of its plastic debris has moved a step closer with the launch of the biggest prototype clean-up boom yet by the Dutch environment minister at a port in The Hague.

On Thursday the 100 metre-long barrier will be towed 12 miles (20km) out to sea for a year of sensor-monitored tests, before being scaled up for real-life trials off the Japanese coast at the end of next year.

If all goes well, full-scale deployment of a 100km-long version will take place in the “great Pacific garbage patch” between California and Hawaii in 2020.

The Dutch environment minister, Sharon Dijksma, told the Guardian that her government, which part-funded the test, was fully backing the project, which will eventually cost about £230m (€300m).

Read full article here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/22/dutch-prototype-clean-up-boom-brings-pacific-plastics-solution-a-step-closer?CMP=share_btn_tw

Celebrate World Oceans Day

CELEBRATE THE HEART OF OUR PLANET ON WORLD OCEANS DAY!

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Will There Be More Plastic Than Fish In The Ocean By 2050?

Are we going to sit back and let this happen?

"The saying, “There’s plenty of fish in the sea” will be utter nonsense by 2050, scientists say, because plastic will dominate the oceans."

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/plastics-filling-oceans-solutions-coming-6428/#ixzz47yGcp4PD 

Follow us: @naturalsociety on Twitter | NaturalSociety on Facebook

Here's What Happens When a Town Bans Plastic Water Bottles

After  reading this article you're going to wish your town or city would ban plastic water bottles, too. Nothing good can be said about the use of plastic bottles. Beverage bottlers keep producing more and more and MORE plastic bottles, which end up in our waterways and the oceans of the world. I can't think of one good thing to say about plastic water bottles.

In her article for Ban The Bottle, Hannah Ellsbury tells the story of a town that banned plastic water bottles.

"College campuses are one thing, they say, but it’s impossible to completely ban single-use plastic water bottles in a town. Well, they’re right – and they’re also absolutely wrong. Because four years ago this very month, residents of Concord, Massachusetts, voted to essentially ban the bottle. They voted to ban the sale of single-use plastic water bottles, and the following January, the measure went into effect.

First, some background.

Jean Hill is an 88-year-old grandmother who learned about garbage patches – and their proliferation of plastic – in the ocean from her grandson. A bit of research confirmed her worst fears – that despite an uptick in recycling, some two million tons of plastic water bottles still end up in landfills every single year.

To Hill, the best place to start reducing all that plastic was with stopping the worst offenders, and that’s what she set out to do. But it wasn’t easy. Local merchants were none too pleased, and the International Bottled Water Association put up a big fight too. Still, when the measure went into effect, all local merchants were on board."

Read the full article here: https://www.banthebottle.net/news/heres-what-happens-when-a-town-bans-plastic-water-bottles/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BanTheBottle+%28Ban+the+Bottle%29#prettyPhoto

Earth Day - 14 Facts About Water

Found a fun website by ContestPatti and couldn't resist sharing her Earth Day post on water!

"As earth day approaches the kids and I are focusing our home learning on the natural world. We have discovered so many interesting facts and figures and we thought we would share them with you, our fellow home learners! So here you go –

1.  The world has a total of 1,3 billion cubic kilometers (332 million cubic miles) of water.
2. Scooped up, all of that water would form a ball just 1, 384 km (860 miles) wide.
3. Nearly 97% of the worlds water is in the oceans.
4. The Pacific Ocean contains more water than all of the world's other oceans and seas together.
5. 71% of the planets surface is covered in water leaving just 29% of the surface as land.
6. Only 2.5% of all the water on Earth is fresh water.
7. For every bathtub full of seawater on Earth, there are just 4 teaspoons of freshwater.
8. Most fresh water is locked up in glaciers and the ice caps. Less than 1% of all the Earths water is fresh & liquid.
9. Permafrost (underground ice) and liquid groundwater (water in rocks and soil) make 1.7% of the worlds total water.
10. The average depth of the ocean is 4,300m (14,000 Feet) but the deepest point at Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean, is 11,030 m (36,200 feet)
11. Humans have explored less than 10% of the ocean.
12. Fewer people have travelled to the deepest parts of the ocean than have travelled into space.
13. If all of the world's ice melted the sea level would rise by 70m (230 feet).
14. The ice over Antarctica is an average of 1, 830 m (6,000 feet) and in some places it is more than twice as deep 4,776 m (15,670 feet)."

Visit ContestPatti's page: http://contestpatti.com/earth-day-did-you-know-water/

Stranded Whales Stomachs Full of Plastic

HORRIBLE!! Postmortem on the 13 stranded North Sea sperm whales finds their stomachs full of plastic. This whales were found near the town of Tönning in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

Drought In Mozambique

Another day, another report on water scarcity, this time in Mozambique where rivers are drying up.

Boys play along the banks of the Zambezi river in Mozambique. The country has been hit by
flooding in the north and drought in the south. Photograph: John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images

Excerpts from an article from The Guardian:

It rained in Mbalavala two weeks ago. The clouds built up from the south, a shower cleared the dusty air, but then, cruelly, it stopped after an hour. For a moment, the 120 families who live in the southern Mozambican village thought their two-year drought was ending.

But that was it. Since then there has been no hint of rain and the chances of planting crops this year in Mbalavala diminish every day as El Niño, the natural weather phenomenon that upturns normal weather patterns every few years in southern Africa, reaches its peak and Mozambique comes to the end of another dry rainy season.

For the second year running, Mbalavala’s maize fields, which should have been planted months ago, lie empty; the soil in vegetable gardens is like sand and what little water there is from an emergency borehole must be shared between cattle and people.

Read full article here: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/feb/17/mozambique-drought-hopes-harvest-evaporate?CMP=twt_gu