Plastic Shopping Bag = Jellyfish

Above photo– a turtle ingesting a plastic bag.

Turtles eat, amongst other things, jellyfish. So, if you’ve ever seen a jellyfish or plastic shopping bag under water, you’ll notice that they can look fairly similar. Over a billion plastic shopping bags are given away each day, roughly one to every six living persons on planet earth. It’s unreal how widespread they are. Plastic, Plastic, Plastic. If you ever travel to Central America, you’ll see them everywhere; in the trees, in the shrubs, burning on the side of the road. Sea birds ingest so much plastic that some scientists estimate that in certain species, plastic amounts to up to 10% of the animal’s body weight.

Recently, San Francisco banned the plastic shopping bag. Currently, Portland is looking into it as well. Both Ed in Chief Ian Marshall and myself are very active in our local Surfrider chapter and are currently investigating ways in which we might be able to mount a similar campaign to San Fran’s. With an ever increasing threat to our environment by the things we consume, this one seems pretty easy to eliminate. I’m reminded of my boyhood skatepunk days listening to the Dead Kennedys, “Give me Convenience or give me Death.” Well, Jello, as you so aptly intoned, convenience might be the death of us.