Word: plasticizers
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Slowly comes the surreal sight of a green plastic toothbrush emerging from the bird's gullet. With her neck arched, the mother cannot fully pass the straight brush. She tries several times to disgorge it, but can't. Nancy and I can hardly bear this. The albatross reswallows and, with the brush stuck inside, wanders away...
...world in which albatrosses originated, the birds swallowed pieces of floating pumice for the fish eggs stuck to them. Albatrosses transferred this survival strategy to toothbrushes, bottle caps, nylon netting, toys and other floating junk. Where chicks die, a pile of colorful plastic particles that used to be in their stomachs often marks their graves...
...albatrosses' eating plastic seems surprising, so do many of the oceans' problems. Like elusive fish, facts often defy common perceptions. Examples...
...relies heavily on seafood and yet is exceptionally disrespectful toward the ocean. It has disregarded international quotas on catches of southern bluefin tuna and used "scientific research" as a bogus justification for hunting whales in the International Whaling Commission's Antarctic Sanctuary. A 1997 study revealed that of 109 plastic objects found in Midway's albatrosses, 108 had come from Japan. A world leader in so many ways, Japan would greatly improve its moral stature by helping to heal the seas...
...part, Nader's not worried about handing the election to Bush. He's down on Gore: "He's plastic man. He used to be the man you went to on civil justice and biotech. Now he's just corporate power." Even though he's in competition with Buchanan, Nader says the racist rap against his opponent is unfair. Indeed, the icon of liberalism vows to reach out to conservatives. A Lebanese-American from small-town Connecticut, he rails like a Puritan. Childhood, he says, is being "corporatized by video games, junk food, undermining parental authority...Bill Bennett stuff...