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Monday, April 21, 2014

Op-Ed: Sound Pollution, or not... the choice is ours to make

Garbage removed from water by Edmonds Marine
Photo copyright Marc Weinberg

Text and photos, Marc Weinberg

Over the past week I've seen two startling examples of pollution. Both were so dramatic and startling that I could not let them be in the background of my mind.

I was told that a high school sponsored a dive at the Edmonds Marine to collect things off the bottom of one small area near the walkway to the fishing pier and the first set of boat slips near by.  The haul that surfaced can speak for itself.  The cell phones that were collected are obviously the result of an accidental mishap, but the rest was intentionally thrown into the water. What were they thinking .... obviously they were not, or worse yet didn't care.

A rainbow river down the drain
Photo copyright Marc Weinberg


Saturday I went to Ballinger Village for an item and was further reminded about how important it is to protect our environment and Puget Sound. If more people cared it would help. If more people took action, scenes like this would not exist. In the meantime Shoreline and other cities are left with the task of monitoring and cleaning surface water runoff, if indeed they can and do. I know it probably isn't in the budget, but it surely should be. Cleaning up our neighborhood is every person's job. Let's get to work!


2 comments:

  1. Thank you Marc Weinberg for this stark reminder of what we collectively and what our governments should do to protect OUR environment!

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  2. I hope everyone views the excellent environmental documentary with Jeremy Irons, "Trashed," at www.Trashedfilm(dot)com. It is unfathomable what is happening to the planet's oceans from plastic waste. The horrific plight of marine life daunts one by the severity of it to the point the more one knows about it, the more despair one may experience. There is hope in that more people know of the problem and we must continually advocate for shoreline and river mouth cleanup before it hits the oceans. We must all advocate for a new political system and economic system that first honors the biosphere we all share and recognizes that we can not continue business as usual. To ultimately solve the problem of plastics and waste in the oceans (includes shorelines, Puget Sound, rivers), is to know there is no place to throw away anything. The waste stream needs to change to one of no waste by total recycle and products that do not linger in the biosphere. It can be and must be done.

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