More than ever, our clothes are made of plastic. Just washing them can pollute the oceans.

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“The unprecedented plastic waste tide plaguing our oceans and shores, can become as limited as our chosen relationship with plastics, which involves a dramatic behavioral change on our part…”
Captions and Photo: © SAF — Coastal Care

Excerpts;

It’s no secret that too many of the plastic products we use end up in the ocean. But you might not be aware of one major source of that pollution: our clothes…

Read Full Article; VOX (09-21-2018)

Great Lakes Teeming With Tiny Plastic Fibers; ABC News (01-09-2015)
Scientists who have reported that the Great Lakes are awash in tiny bits of plastic are raising new alarms about a little-noticed form of the debris turning up in sampling nets: synthetic fibers from garments, cleaning cloths and other consumer products…

Accumulating Microplastic Threat to Shores, BBC (01-29-2012)
Plastic debris < 1 mm (defined here as microplastic) is accumulating in marine habitats. Ingestion of microplastic provides a potential pathway for the transfer of pollutants, monomers, and plastic-additives to organisms with uncertain consequences for their health. Here, we show that microplastic contaminates the shorelines at 18 sites worldwide representing six continents from the poles to the equator, with more material in densely populated areas...

What are businesses doing to turn off the plastic tap? UNEP (06-28-2018)

Video captures moment plastic enters food chain, BBC News (03-11-2017)
A scientist has filmed the moment plastic microfibre is ingested by plankton, illustrating how the material is affecting life beneath the waves. The footage shows one way that plastic waste could be entering the marine and global food chain…

Plastic Pollution / The Great Plastic Tide, Coastal Care ©-2009.
Washed out on our coasts in obvious and clearly visible form, the plastic pollution spectacle blatantly unveiling on our beaches is only the prelude of the greater story that unfolded further away in the world’s oceans, yet mostly originating from where we stand: the land…

You Can Help Turn the Tide on Plastic. Here’s How.; The National Geographic (05-26-2018)
Do these six pain-free things, and you’ll help reduce the impact plastic is having on oceans and other waterways around the world…

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