Another Reason to Keep San Diego's Beaches Clean

I really didn't start this blog as an environmental blog. It's really an outdoors blog, which means I write about running, cool places I visit, and beer, in roughly that order. But it seems that the conservation-posts have been growing, and in retrospect the impetus is an easy one to guess: no conservation = no cool places to run or do anything else in. It really wasn't a planned development. I just wanted to use the space I take up on the web yammering about what I love to make a positive difference.

In that spirit: we live along the Pacific Coast. Have you heard of the Pacific Garbage Patch? If not, go watch this video (or if you're somewhere you can't watch videos, see this article about a group from the Scripps Institute that has been exploring the Patch.)



I had heard of it but images have a way of motivating you that dry text does not.
Take a look at these pictures of birds from the mid-Pacific with stomachs full of plastic. Here's just the first:



More photos here. This single set of photos has done more in the past year to make me self conscious of my consumption and recycling habits. Without doing something there's no reason to think that this Patch won't keep expanding, and soon we'll be looking at dead birds like these on San Diego's beaches. More information here.