Group Finds 6 Million Pounds of Trash on World's Beaches

Source: Associated Press

Group finds 6 million pounds of trash on world's beaches
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 1 minute ago

WASHINGTON - The world's beaches and shores are anything but pristine. Volunteers scoured 33,000 miles of shoreline worldwide and found 6 million pounds of debris from cigarette butts and food wrappers to abandoned fishing lines and plastic bags that threaten seabirds and marine mammals.

A report by the Ocean Conservancy, to be released Wednesday, catalogues nearly 7.2 million items that were collected by volunteers on a single day last September as they combed beaches and rocky shorelines in 76 countries from Bahrain to Bangladesh and in 45 states from southern California to the rocky coast of Maine.

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The most extensive cleanup was in the United States where 190,000 volunteers covered 10,110 miles — about a third of the worldwide total — and picked up 3.9 million pounds of debris on a single Saturday last September, according to the report.

That's 390 pounds of trash per mile, among the highest rates of any country, although the high number also reflects the large number of U.S. volunteers who took part, said Spruill. By comparison, volunteers in neighboring Canada collected 74 pounds per mile and those in Mexico, 157 pounds per mile, said the report. About 65 pounds of trash were collected per mile in China and 46 pounds per mile in New Zealand. Volunteers covered one mile in Bahrain and found 300 pounds of trash.

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A third of the items found came from smokers.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080415/ap_on_re_us/beach_debris

The human primate will evolve through progress. And as any Bushie will tell you, garbage is teh residue of progress.

Next year, TWELVE MILLION!

:sarcasm:

It's about the size of Texas, and it's choked with trash and debris brought in from all over the world on the ocean currents.

C'est pathetique.

:dem:

guess what? The very next day there was probably another 6 million pounds on the same beaches.

Ask me if I'm surprised.