The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and a Water Fountain App
If you dutifully use refillable coffee mugs and water bottles then take heart that you are not alone. Statistics Canada reported last week in Households and the Environment that 68% of Canadian households drink mainly tap water, while bottled water consumption has fallen to 22%, down from 24% in 2009 and 30% in 2007.
But how many times have you run out of water and wondered where to get a refill? Now there's an App for that developed by TVO's The Water Brothers. Quench directs you to the nearest water fountain or official water bottle refill location in the Greater Toronto Area. These are local businesses who are happy to provide free tap water.
Plastic water bottles and caps are a menace to our oceans, as Captain Charles Moore describes in Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save Oceans. While sailing across the Pacific, Captain Moore came across a "plastic soup," now commonly referred to as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The stomach contents of birds feeding on this plastic debris revealed bottle caps and disposable lighters. Captain Moore has become a tireless advocate for marine degradable packaging, as well as an end to our global dependency on plastic.
In this video, The Water Brothers join a research team in the Pacific Ocean. The ROM's David Ireland explains how plastics affect the marine
food chain.
For more information about marine pollution, and plastics in particular, come into the Business, Science and Technology Department on the third floor of the Toronto Reference Library.
3 thoughts on “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and a Water Fountain App”
Thanks for this interesting post. For a more light-hearted look at the issue of plastic garbage in our oceans, you might want to check out this book:
Moby-duck : an accidental odyssey : the true story of 28,800 bath toys lost at sea and of the beachcombers, oceanographers, environmentalists, and fools, including the author, who went in search of them.
It’s a fun read.
Thanks Carolyn. I look forward to Moby-Duck!
I maybe 6 years too late with this comment, however it’s interesting that sea pollution is now a major issue. Maybe if people had taken more notice of your post 6-7 years ago we wouldn’t be in this dire situation. I work for a plastics company that trades in building plastics, however most building plastics are re-ground and used again for other building materials. Mick.