Putting a dent in Trash Island

By Trevor Dore

a manmade “trash island,” covering an

area twice the size of Texas. The various
ocean currents carry fishing nets, plastic
bottles, plastic bags and various other bits
and pieces from the Pacific Coasts of North
America and South East Asia to this central
location on the edge of the North Pacific
Gyre.

Charles Moore, an environmentalist,
discovered the island in 1997. It is estimated
that 100,000 marine mammals die each year
as a result of eating or being entangled in
the debris. This is a frightening statistic and
some think that the island has become too
big.

There is good news, though; a
group of scientists, inventors, sailors, and
environmentalists have implemented Project
Kaisei. The project gets its name from the
Japanese word for “ocean planet” and is
supported by Ocean Voyages Institute,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography and

[: the middle of the Pacific Ocean, floats

Brita. The plan is to remove 40 tonnes of
the estimated 6 million tonnes of trash in an
experimental pilot project.

The project involves a ship anchored
next to the vortex, acting as a floating
processing plant. The team plans to
test different methods of retrieving and
processing the trash.

Until recently, some plastics were
not recyclable; however, thanks to new
technology, there is now an option for
transforming these plastics into fuel. The
initial idea is for the ship to convert the
plastic into diesel to fuel its own operation.
If all goes well, Project Kaisei will act
as a prototype for further processing in
waterways that are polluted with recyclable
debris worldwide.

The talented people at National
Geographic plan on documenting the entire
experience. Hopefully the project will raise
awareness, inspire coastal clean ups and
individual reduction of plastics consumption
as well as get people to start looking at new
ways to reduce, reuse and recycle.

 

By Shoshana Berman, Opinions take your eyes off something that is

Editor gross? This was perhaps the longest 20
seconds of my life. Here I was diligently
t O, after being terrorized into trying to prevent us all from dying and
I S believing we were all going to the whole time I can’t help but picture

contract HIN 1 and die as soon as some young woman, walking up the sink

; school resumed, I was most relieved to see
the new Purell hand sanitizers on campus.
; My experience with the bathroom closest
to the cafeteria however has not been
as reassuring. The second day of school
when I went to the washroom and tried to
wash my hands afterwards there was no
soap. No soap! Need I remind Douglas
College that the only thing preventing us
from all contracting HIN1 and dying is
washing our hands whenever we have a
free moment? Oh yeah, that and the hand
sanitizers.

I stayed away from that bathroom for
a few days after that because I don’t want
to die. The next time I ventured back to
this particular ladies room, what awaited
me as I again tried to stave off death by
washing my hands? I looked down as I
wet my hands and lo and behold in the
sink was the longest, nastiest, slimy green
booger you have ever seen. This thing was
two inches long and I had to look at this
piece of snot for a whole 20 seconds of
hand washing, because I don’t want to die.
You know that repulsed and fascinated
at the same time state when you can’t

8

ee eee ee

and just blowing her nose right into the
basin. I mean, how is that possible? I
don’t even know how women squat over
the toilet without touching it and get pee
everywhere, another gross bathroom
practice, far less these nasal gymnastics.
This was really just too much for me to
wrap my imagination around although I
did keep trying. I think the technical term
for this mind trap is attraction-repulsion
complex.

So please to save me from mental
paralysis in my very loaded semester,
don’t hork in the sink. This is the /adies
room, people. The person who did this
was no lady! To this booger-horking-in-
the-sink female lout, I’m going to tell you
something your mother obviously forgot.
Your boogers belong in a Kleenex! I just
hope that wasn’t an HIN1 booger with
that poor woman in her death throes at
the sink with no soap anywhere in sight,
because then I’d feel really badly about
getting upset with her.

Does anyone know where there’s a
hand sanitizer?

 

R= TE A IY RRS Re RT

Oe ER

 

Your Boogers belong in a Kleenex not in the sink.

Washroom: Biohazard area?