Monday's Plastic Challenge

I've noticed a pattern when I tell people about the Plastic Diet. They think it is dumb. Nonsense, pointless, outrageously inconvenient.

I explain how plastic doesn't biodegrade--ever. How the seaturtles are choking. How it's healthier for me to consume less packaged foods and more fruits and veggies anyway. Nope. Today a friend told me he was going to consume extra plastic goods to counteract my efforts. Not cool!

So then I bring out the big guns: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Works every time. At first I read that it was bigger than Texas, but this Independent article says it's almost TWICE the size of the continental US.

Some more on the plastic soup:

• 100 million tons of flotsam; every square mile of ocean has 46,000 pieces of floating plastic
  
• Moves around like an animal without a leash
  
• Will double in size over next decade unless consumers cut back on disposable plastics
  
• Modern plastics are so durable that objects over 50 years old are still floating around
  
• Hundreds of millions of plastic pellets (nurdles.. the raw material of the plastic industry) end up in the food chain and on your dinner plate.
  

Now you know. Monday's Plastic Challenge: let's each tell one new person about the Garbage Patch today and see their reaction.