"If there's a hell, this is it."
-V. K. Roach
I WAS a friendly 7th grade student at Precious Blood Catholic Elementary in Banning when it happened—when I became obsessed with two disturbing things: (1) Mark Thomson, my drop dead gorgeous dark-eyed paramour one grade behind me and (2) nasty old chewing gum plastered underneath restaurant tables. Inexplicably, after being seated at any public eatery regardless of where beginning around age 12—my mind, body, and soul would suddenly be seized by tormenting currents of joy and disgust. Joy, because eating out is my favorite thing in life. Always has been and will be. Especially when the ocean (Chart House, Malibu) or bean and cheese burritos are involved. And disgust, because the act of sitting down for a meal at any public
table grew increasingly unbearable, causing me to unravel on the spot from the inside. On the rare occasion there was a tablecloth present (Reuben's in Redlands), my anxiety would subside a bit. But like great sex and true
love—tablecloths were few and far between for me. Nothing, however, could prepare me for the horror induced when first I learned of the truth that is our great water holocaust. These facts, in conjunction with global warming, are the greatest threats facing Mother Earth and mankind right now. Whether you believe it or not.
As with most pleasures in life,
eating out became an icky-blicky double-edged sword. Nothing was ever smooth sailing for this kid. Every happy occasion had to be tainted by some
nebulous, free-floating fear that forever threatened my fragile state of mind.
I come from a long line of fragile minds. On both sides. This means I could
never just walk into Taco Bell—order a bean and cheese burrito, some
cinnamon twisties, and a medium Mountain Dew, plop my rump in the corner booth by the
window and rip into my refried joy unscathed. No way, no way. There was
always some nasty catch hooked into every would-be good time. And the nasty
that caught me—ruining countless meals during middle school: somebody's left-over chewing gum staring down at me whenever I couldn't help myself but peek underneath my table in public. Dead, stiff whatever the hell it was in a Tidal Wave of defunct colors and flavors that some phagocyte smeared up there months, perhaps years earlier. This exact scenario never failed to distract, disturb, and unhinge me whenever I ate out during puberty. It was hell. It finally cooled down sometime during my 20s.
Here we are today: Friday, April 22, 2016. It’s been lifetimes since the agony and ecstasy that was the 7th grade. I’m grown up now, as friendly as ever and still not a Catholic. I’d like to think that I’ve recovered from my obsession with the obscene leftovers of strangers. And I had. I had until that terrible day when
I learned of something far, far worse than gobs of Juicy Fruit—The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Hearing the initial description of it made
my dreary life flash before me like a 5 watt bulb.
For those who don't know, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a massive (and I mean colossal) vortex of global trash that's collected in the Pacific Ocean gyre halfway
between San Francisco and Hawai’i. Over time, the force of ocean currents have moved it all there. And get this—it’s twice the size of Texas. TEXAS! Not Rhode Island. Not Colorado. Motherfucking Texas. And not so much a dense carpet of trash as I
had initially imagined, the Garbage Patch is more like a gigantic trash
soup gurgling with every piece of floating filth a fertile mind could
conjure. In particular: water bottles and other disposable food and drink
containers as far as the eye can see. Recent estimations have it at more than a
hundred feet deep and growing. What’s worse—whales, dolphins, sharks,
birds and fish that call the Pacific Ocean home are mistaking the debris for
food (especially the red-colored debris) and actually eating it—making it a
diet of certain death for them. Scientists and researchers have cracked open
the rotting carcasses of countless creatures strangled in the mess and found
their bellies overflowing with everything from disposable lighters to bottle
caps. O Lord. The bottle caps. These (virtually indestructible) objects, when nobody bothers to recycle them, often maim and even murder God’s children of the sea.
Plastic, humanity's "miracle material", is one of the most abundant ingredients in the Garbage Patch. In
particular, the raw feed stock of plastic known as polymers or “nardles”.
Nardles are tiny translucent pebbles hatched in manufacturing plants throughout
Texas and Louisiana and are chemically-treated to be hard, soft, colorful,
colorless, ultraviolet or shatter-resistant. In this form, before corporations
have melted them into disposable drink containers and bottle caps—nardles
make up 10% of all the plastic found in the ocean. The world’s largest landfill
ain’t even on the land. It’s out there. In the water. What's worse, the GPGP is but ONE OF FIVE of these massive liquid landfills worldwide.
What's so bad about plastic? you ask. That’s an excellent question and one that everyone should be
asking. The simplest answer? Like certain pesky viruses, it never goes away. Over time
it gets smaller and smaller, yes, but forever remains plastic. When we die, we
decompose. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Not plastic. And yet, we keep making
more and more and more and more of it—a staggering 300,000,000 tons more per
year. Then we wonder why so many loved ones get cancer, Alzheimer's, etcetera. Because disease and death are the end result when tons of plastic doesn’t get recycled, floats down storm
drains and merges with our oceans (and their inhabitants). Bodies of water that cover
70% of this exquisite little planet, our planet, our home, Mother Earth, Gaia. In the end, there’s no getting out of this one—what we don’t
recycle, we’ll probably eat. And what we don’t eat—the whales, dolphins,
sharks, birds and fish surely will—promising them a painful death.
Is that something you want to let happen?
In many ways, I wish I'd remained ignorant of this floating, bloating hell on earth. The mere knowing it’s out there makes me
wanna drown myself in sorrow. This whole dirty water epidemic is like suicide on
the installment plan anyway. But, by the same token, I’m glad I know it exists. Ignorance is the greatest sin. I’m the kind of gal who’d
rather know the truth—no matter how unsightly, how awful—versus stumbling drunk through this toxic dream. I need to know what’s really going on so that I might do something to change it. Regret for what we've done can be tempered with time. Regret for what we didn't do is inconsolable.
When I
first learned of this travesty on some idle Palm Springs Friday in April, I found myself flash-dancing back to 1985: a fateful year when something inside would force me to flop over
sideways and closely examine the underside of Bob's Big Boy tables from here to the Salton Sea. Me making myself face the horrifying truth wedged in petrified
patches an inch beneath my unhappy meal. Except this is different. This makes me feel utterly
swindled. Heartbroken. Inconsolable. Scared shitless quite frankly. Contemplating this—our great environmental holocaust—eclipses all that chewing gum and even the awful night during rehab part deux in Indio when I learned that Mark was dead. A decade now. "WHAT?" I cried out when I heard it. A plaintive wail if ever there was one.
So behold O! monks and monkettes, this is my parting truth for you: Like great sex, true love and tablecloths—a good planet is hard to find.
