by Marlene A. Affeld

By negligently discarding plastic items, especially plastic water bottles, fishing gear and plastic bags, people are unknowingly causing the deaths of millions of mammals, fish, birds and reptiles each and every year. We defile the face of the earth with plastic refuse creating waterway contamination. Since the invention of plastic earlier this century, it has become a popular material used in a wide variety of unique and innovative applications.

Plastic is used to make, or wrap around, many of the items we buy or use. The problem comes when we no longer want these items and how we dispose of them, particularly the throwaway plastic material used in wrapping or packaging. Plastic is handy, lightweight and easily discarded. Too easily discarded. Plastics are utilized because they are easy and inexpensive to manufacture, strong and durable. Regrettably these same useful characteristics make plastic an overwhelming pollution problem. Inferior quality and low cost means plastic is readily discarded. Plastics take around 300 years to photo degrade.

Its long life assures it survives in the environment for extended periods where it can do great harm. Because plastic does not easily decompose and requires high energy ultra-violet light to break down, the volume of plastic waste in the world's oceans is steadily increasing. Plastic is now found in virtually all the oceans and rivers of the world, even the most remote and once pristine.