Video shows CI’s own floating plastic patch
(CNS): Video footage taken less than two miles off the George Town shoreline this week shows that the Cayman Islands is growing its own floating plastic garbage patch. The film and pictures taken by Delwin McLaughlin were re-posted all over social media and raised the alarm for local activists, especially Plastic Free Cayman, which continues to press an unresponsive government over a single-use plastics ban here.
“We have a plastic pollution problem,” the activists said, as they urged people to act to stop the local waters becoming a garbage patch, pointing out that floating patches of garbage in the seas around the world are emerging everywhere and Cayman is not immune.
“We can all help. Stop buying single-use plastic, refuse Styrofoam, carry a reusable water bottle, don’t buy bottled water, spread awareness, pick up plastic that you see, don’t litter, and beach clean,” the activists said and urged people to demand change from the businesses they support and to pressure their MLAs for a ban on single-use plastic.
McLaughlin, who took pictures and filmed the patch, said he had never seen anything like it before. He said the miles of plastic and foam was “very upsetting”.
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Category: Marine Environment, Science & Nature
I believe the salt content is too high for being used as fertilizer.
I find that hard to believe, I do believe you all are grasping at straws now, that muck looks similar to what is floating around down to the deep South of us, plus when you sort thru the garbage floating up on our island it is obvious it isn’t from here the brands are not even consumed here and lots of it is shockingly in French, go figure where that would be coming from then.
I guarantee that that plastic did not originate from Cayman.
Most of the plastic found on the shore comes from neighboring islands… namely poorer islands that don’t have proper waste disposal. It’s a very sad state of affairs and all we can do really is lead by example.
I really think plastic pollution issue dwarfs climate coolin- .. I mean global warmin- .. I mean climate change.
“….. namely poorer islands that don’t have proper waste disposal.” By that you are referring to the Cayman Islands….
The article never said it did. What the article did say is we have a plastic pollution problem. Do you think we don’t?
cayman’s future…..rising sea levels with huge level of sargassum and plastic.
and our politicians continue to stick their heads in the sand. caymankind.
What I don’t understand is why it took so long for this problem to be recognised on a global scale. 30 years ago I visited some of the remoter parts of Svalbard and the shorelines there were already littered with plastic trash. Many of the containers we found were printed in Korean or Japanese so the likely source were their fishing fleets (now banned since 2017) operating there.
I was diving places in the mid-1990s where dive boats had already stopped using things like disposable plastic cups and bottled water, they were giving customers re-usable sports bottles to fill from a cooler. Other drinks on the boats were all in re-recyclable cans.
These issues should have been picked up years ago but it’s typical of the human race isn’t it? Ignore something until you can’t ignore it any more then, rather than having made a measured approach to the problem over a number of years, rush around trying to play catch up.
Don’t worry….no one will be visiting or buying anything in Cayman after the NY Times article talking about rising seas and mount trashmore!
It doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing. We can all do our little bits and make a difference, IF WE CHOOSE. I have no interest or right to pressure others into doing what I think is right.
It’s a simple matter to acquire multiple use shopping bags, for example. Another is to filter and bottle your own water, which is likely a much safer alternative to the bottled water purchased at the stores, not to mention less expensive, after the initial cost of filtration system.
Stop telling me what to buy. You want to stop plastic in the ocean? Google where it comes from. Lots of countries just dump garbage in rivers which flush into the ocean. Do something about that and stop worrying about my Burger King straw.
caymankind attitude.
Crappy attitude came across but there is truth in it. The best way to attack plastic pollution right now is to help developing (poor) nations build proper waste management practices.
Are these cruise ship monitored to make sure they are dumping waste in our water. .
no
yes they are. they are not the problem.
They don’t dump in Cayman waters, but once they are in the open ocean they can dump at will. Then, the currents and wind bring it right back to us.
tons in ocean s sound…i was shocked
What is so ironic here is that the biggest supplier of sterofoam has pitched his tent at the foot of Mountrashmore!
the supplier is not the problem…the end user is. truth hurts?
We should never forget that videofoam killed the radio star!
reminD me
Again why have yet to ban single-use plastics and
polystyRene?
Tsk.tsk.
Can you spell name of that styro-tycoon our CIG is in bed with?
Styrofoam is like karma- what goes around comes around
Poor misguided activists yet again have not even the foggiest as to what the real issues are.
Perhaps you can tell us what the real issues are?
Yes tell us
Find the source of the plastic that doesn’t end up in a proper waste/recycling facility, generally measured in tonnes and not by the straw.
Locally having people not litter is really a better solution at a lower social cost than enacting laws that cost money to implement and enforce. The result of the law method is to make it so you can’t actually afford to treat your waste properly or even assist developing countries do the same.
We cannot refuse styrofoam in the Cayman Islands as it is the basis of Dart’s massive profits around the world.
What’s funny is that you actually believe that.
There are always plastics in the Sargassum.
It is God’s way of cleaning his Oceans.
Sargassum brings plastics to the shores where it lands, humans then clean it up.
It is amazing to see the mats of Sargassum from short flights such as to Kingston and Havana. Sargassum makes great fertilizer, too!