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?