Aye, sea turtles

Matthew Supple
April 10

A study has shown that since 1885 more than one third of dead leather backs have had plastic in their body. Not included are candy wrappers, fishing line, balloons and much more. Though scientists admit the plastic is often not the cause of the death it is still alarming how many turtles have ingested the garbage and say the problem is growing. A huge issue is the extremely endangered turtle's diet:jellyfish. This is because a plastic bag in the ocean looks a lot like a jellyfish. While the plastic is not always the cause for the turtles deaths, it can interfere with their digestion and cause a slow painful death. They blame the fact Americans package almost everything we produce in cheap and abundant plastic.

This should be a warning alarm to everyone, not just Americans, that our recycling programs, while effective, are not enough. We disregard things that are detrimental to other species. Plastic bags in particular are a huge problem because we go through so many millions a week just from shopping for our groceries. An easy fix would be to switch to a reusable bag like many European countries do now. Luckily for the leatherbacks and many other marine creatures, some big chain stores like target and Harris teeter are offering reusable bags in their store for relatively cheap. Hopefully they'll catch on and we can phase out the environmental hazard.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/09/leatherback-turtles.html