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Our oceans are filling up with plastic: plastic that harms wildlife and never biodegrades; plastic that enters the food chain and leaches toxic chemicals. This blog is a record of my journey to live with as little unnecessary plastic as possible. Won't you join me? Fake plastic fish may be cute, but if we keep filling up our oceans with plastic, they could be the only kind we have left.... |
First Flush
It’s raining tonight. I know I was going to write more about my trip to the transfer center, but it’s raining tonight. Finally. The water is coming down in sheets and our poor thirsty plants are in shock, as are we. I was going to write about something else, but all I can think about is the rain.
Our first big rain of the season is called “first-flush” because the water washes all the debris and pollutants from the land down the storm drains and into the Bay and finally the sea. I don’t know if tonight is our official first-flush, but walking home I saw rivers of water rushing along the curbs and falling into the drains. And there I was in the dark trying to untangle plastic from the grates before it was swept down.
This is the night of reckoning. During the dry days, plastic bottle caps and lighters and straws and plastic bags are merely theoretical threats to marine life. On a night like this, they become real. Tomorrow our streets will look sparkling new. We won’t see the brown water flowing beneath them or the damage we’ve caused by our carelessness. Unless we choose to look.
Comments
Comments
3 Comments on First Flush
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terrible person on
Wed, 10th Oct 2007 11:07 am
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LifeLessPlastic on
Wed, 10th Oct 2007 3:46 pm
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Anna on
Thu, 11th Oct 2007 10:49 am
Here is a New York Times story on recycling in Seattle. Do they do a lot better than Oakland?
This post sure makes me sad. I honestly believe that people don’t realize that storm drains basically lead right into ocean (or in my case straight into Lake Michigan). I think, and maybe a bit naively, that if this was widely publisized, some people would actually think twice before they littered.
On a lighter note, I gave you a little nod in my blog today and added your blog to my link list. I referred to you as “knowing a lot” so that’s kind of fun. Ciao!
Hey Beth,
Continue loving your blog, awesome!
We had our first flush here a few weeks back, check out what we found the next morning, nasty business:
My ongoing solidarity for championing th cause!
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