Plastic is So Bad

Or...The Dragon saves a duck from certain plastic doom

I leapt out of the car, startling the gentleman driving. Luckily, he’d stopped at a stop sign, but he wasn’t accustomed to me shouting, “oh my God, stop, stop the car” while flinging the seat belt around and exiting the car as if it were on fire. The duck I approached seemed similarly startled. It looked at me as if deciding, “human coming this way; do I fight or fly?” The poor thing stood next to one of those plastic six-pack rings. It was like an advertisement for pollution. I could hear Sigourney Weaver’s voice rattling off a statistic about pollution and bird deaths in my head. I could also hear the duck hissing at me—a series of deep-throat threatening hisses like a psychotic goose. I spoke kindly to him while I grabbed up the soda rings and he waddled warily to the side, keeping those brilliant shiny eyes on me the whole time. I got back in the car and Joe had to ask “What is wrong with you?”

Ooo. A chance to educate.

See, I hate to find plastic crap lying around. I live pretty darn close to the Gulf of Mexico so it’s doubly annoying to find plastic crap lying around. Sea turtles eat plastic bags that look like jellyfish and suddenly find themselves choking to death or too full to eat anything nutritious. Birds and small creatures get caught in these ridiculous soda rings that people are too busy to cut before tossing in the trash. I could go on for a looooong time on this diatribe. Instead, I’ll direct you to this excellent article from Monterey Bay Aquarium. If you have trouble with that link, try http://tinyurl.com/PlasticInOcean.

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: pollution, sea turtles, duck, plastic rings, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Gulf of Mexico