Climate Change

Plastics may actually be co-opted to help reduce harm to the environment — but only if we stop screwing it up in all those other ways we mess with it.

In 1992, a shipping container filled with 28,000 “rubber” duckies was lost after it fell into the sea somewhere between Hong Kong and the United States. Even today, those plastic bath toys still wash ashore from time to time, even in totally different oceans as far away as the eastern seaboard of the United States, as well as the coasts of Britain and Ireland. That flotilla of escaped plastic ducks joins millions of Lego pieces, sneakers, styrofoam insulation, plastic crates, and a plethora of other items lost at sea that — surprisingly — are teaching us about ocean currents and about the astonishing indestructibility of plastics in marine environments.
It's not a game anymore!