Governance By Greed: Biden, Trump, Ukraine

Why was Joe Biden involved in Ukrainian affairs, knowing full well his son sat on the board of a Ukrainian company owned by an oligarch?  Why was his son placed on the board if for no other reason than that his father was vice president? A position that paid him more money in a month than many Americans earn in a year, and that few Ukrainians earn in a year.

Why was Sondland made ambassador? Because he contributed a million dollars to the Trump campaign. Even if it is not impeachable, Trump's dealings with Ukraine should raise eyebrows with anyone concerned about good government.

Many Republicans and Democrats use public office to enrich themselves, to create sweetheart deals, to gain access to channels of wealth available to few others. Presidents, and many other politicians, if they are not rich going in, make sure they are or will be fabulously wealthy by the time they get out.

The two party system fails when it is monopolized by men and women driven by ego, greed and their own self interest. Integrity should matter first, not the party to which a political candidate belongs.

The world is full of greedy, corrupt, selfish men that control countries that they plunder. Corruption is a cancer that ruins countries and kills democracies.

Animals Used for Entertainment, A Mascot, And Animal Cruelty

A university mascot that is a dog has become the subject of a well funded animal organization's latest attempt to gain publicity for itself. The organization is campaigning to stop the dog from being used as a mascot under the notion that no animal should be used for entertainment. Animals used for entertainment, such as dogs used for dog fighting, are a completely different situation than a well cared for dog used for entertainment as a mascot. Trivializing animal cruelty contributes to the continued do nothingness about real animal cruelty.

Real animal cruelty is widespread, horrific, and rarely responded to appropriately.

The absence of a meaningful law enforcement response to real animal cruelty, coupled with the exploitation of animal cruelty by a variety of animal organizations, ensures the continued lack of a serious response to animal cruelty.

Animals used by organizations to promote themselves and obtain money, a common practice among many animal organizations and individuals, is more harmful to animals than the harmless use of a well cared for mascot.

Why Plastic Pollution Is Getting Worse, And What Is Being Done

Billions of people the world over are dependent on plastic. Billions of people plastic dependent live in places that lack the infrastructure to properly dispose of their plastic waste. Until proper waste disposal becomes universal, plastic trash will continue polluting oceans, rivers and lands. No technology, no scientific miracle, no plastic straw ban, no beach cleanup, will amount to anything as long as billions of people use millions of kilos of plastic daily without any way to properly dispose of the plastic they use. And so plastic continues pouring into oceans and rivers by millions of kilos daily. The political will, the economic will, even the religious will to ensure universal proper waste management is absent. No movement exists to ensure billions of people plastic dependent have adequate ways of disposing of their plastic waste. Unless this changes, all the anti plastic pollution well funded organizations and advocates provide nothing more than crumbs or feel good endeavors that do not make a dent against plastic pollution.

The plastic trash and other harmful garbage generated from billions of people that do not have a way to properly dispose of their garbage pollutes rivers, lakes, oceans and lands worldwide. Employing people to do the manual labor necessary to remove plastic trash already in the environment remains virtually nonexistent.  Garbage collection and proper ways to dispose of plastic trash remains  nonexistent for billions of people.

It is easy for many to ignore what happens in developing nations. All the plastic trash and other harmful contaminants that end up in oceans does not stay confined to one geographical area. The modern world is heavily dependent on plastic and on a variety of chemicals and materials that are harmful to human health, animals and the environment. The unwillingness to address what to do with plastic trash and other harmful materials that billions of people use and have no way to properly dispose of ensures the continued destruction of oceans and more.

Most plastic trash cannot be recycled. It is disingenuous, even harmful, to continue the illusion that plastic waste is recycled. The priority must be on ensuring the proper disposal of plastic trash, either by proper burial, or proper burning (such as what is done in Sweden, where plastic is burned and used for energy, and where most of the contaminants are captured and not released into the atmosphere).

This is not a problem that is going away. The dependency on plastic is only increasing. Walk through  supermarkets in developing countries, and there one can see the same thing that can be seen in developed countries. Millions of products packaged in plastic wraps, containers and bottles, and bagged in plastic. Most of the world uses plastic, but most of the world has no way to properly dispose of their plastic. Almost everything that one sees in many developing country supermarkets will end up in rivers, oceans, or openly burned, thereby poisoning people, animals and the environment. No one is held responsible, including the companies that benefit from cheap plastic. The oceans, the environment, human health, animals, pay the true costly price for plastic's cheapness.

The failure to ensure proper waste disposal, now that most of the world is plastic addicted, is beyond disgraceful. The world is being poisoned, and instead of addressing this catastrophe, the catastrophe gets exploited, talked about or ignored. Instead of more ruminations, empty words and gestures, time, effort and money must be spent on ensuring proper waste management worldwide. Anything short of that is nothing but window dressing.

Will Plastic Bracelets And Jewelry Made From Ocean Plastic Save Oceans?

Buying plastic bracelets made from ocean trash may make people feel good, but does it have any impact on saving oceans from plastic trash?

Billions of people depend on plastic. Billions of people that depend on plastic live in places where there is no infrastructure to properly remove and dispose of plastic waste. Most plastic used cannot be recycled. Most plastic trash polluting oceans, rivers and lands cannot be recycled.

Will plastic bracelets made from ocean plastic stop the massive flow of plastic daily entering oceans and rivers by millions upon millions of pounds?  If people in developing countries, already made plastic dependent, had a way of properly disposing of their plastic, their plastic trash would not end up in oceans.

The political will, the economic will, the need to universalize proper waste management and disposal of plastic waste is nonexistent.

The tiny amount of plastic waste removed from oceans and rivers yearly in order to make plastic bracelets or other plastic jewelry does not come to close to equaling the amount of plastic waste pouring into oceans and rivers daily.

People should buy plastic products made from ocean trash because it makes them feel good. But if they think it is making a dent against plastic pollution, they are sadly mistaken.

What is needed is a massively funded employment project in which the manual labor needed to remove plastic waste from the environment is properly funded.

But even if plastic trash is removed from the environment, there has to be a place to properly dispose of it.

There must be a movement, no less important than the movement to address global climate change, in which people fight to ensure that proper waste management and waste disposal is made available to all of the billions of people made plastic dependent no matter where they live.

Fungus And The Nonexistent Anti Plastic Pollution Movement

A fungus discovered in a garbage dump in Pakistan is touted by some as the answer to plastic pollution. Virtually indestructible plastic appears that it can be broken down by the fungus and rendered harmless in the limited environment of the Pakistan garbage dump. But in the harsh environments of oceans and elsewhere, the fungus does not stand a chance.

Instead of waiting for the scientific or technological miracle that will never come, the plastic pollution problem will only get worse until it is treated as the crisis that it is.

Billions of people are plastic dependent. Billions of people are plastic dependent and lack ways to properly dispose of their plastic waste, so it gets dumped into rivers and oceans and on lands. It also gets openly burned, poisoning people, animals and the environment.

Unless plastic trash is properly collected and disposed of, plastic trash will keep accumulating until the oceans are completely destroyed. This means spending trillions of dollars on creating a worldwide proper waste management system. Is mankind anywhere close to properly disposing of its garbage?

World leaders meet and flaunt their greatness. Trillions of dollars are spent on weapons. Billionaires and multimillionaires accumulate more wealth as the world becomes more impoverished.

People that should care settle for crumbs and woefully inadequate feel good solutions.

No movement exists to create universal proper waste management. Therefore plastic will continue pouring into the environment and nothing of consequence will be done to stop it.

South Pacific, China, Russia, Trump

China pursues what it perceives as its self interest, not realizing the destruction it is causing to the South China Sea and to the South Pacific will come back to haunt China and the rest of the world. Each coral reef destroyed, each forest ruined, means less food for the future. Environmental degradation has far reaching consequences that continue to be ignored or dismissed.

Russia aggressively pursues the self interests of Putin.

While China and Russia expand their power, oblivious to environmental costs and prices paid in human suffering, the United States remains bogged down in drama.

It is indisputable that Putin wanted Trump for president. If someone has any doubt, go back to any of the Russian state propaganda networks, including RT, and review their aggressive pre-election peddling and support for Trump.

The parochial desires of foolish leadership weakens the United States. If Trump was not a billionaire, if people did not worship money and power, if Trump was a retired middle class man and not a rich man, he would not be where he is.

Is Red Tide Harmful Long-term?

There is little information about the long term impact of red tide. If people knew the true long term impact, they might be scared away from coasts. Property values would plummet, and places like Florida would lose much of its tax base.

Instead, red tide continues to be ignored. At best, it is studied or talked about, but no meaningful action is taken. Simple things like restricting fertilizers and chemicals on the lawns of people living near the coasts is far too controversial. If the simple, easy to achieve things will not be done, then it is unrealistic that anything else will be done except more talk. 

Red tide kills fish. Red tide kills sea snakes. Red tide kills sea turtles. Red tide kills manatees. Red tide kills dolphins. Red tide kills other marine animals. Red tide kills birds. 

Does anyone honestly believe that red tide - a killer of hardy birds, sea turtles, mammals, fish and other marine life - has no long term harmful effects? 

Continued Failure To Be Serious About Plastic Pollution

Every single day millions of kilos of new plastic trash enters into rivers and oceans.

Thousands, if not millions of people, need to be gainfully employed and paid a fair wage to remove plastic trash already in the environment before there is a positive impact.

Most plastic trash can only be removed from the environment by manual labor, not technology. In developing countries, few can afford to be volunteers. Relying on volunteers or technology and not on employed workers ensures the plastic pollution catastrophe continues.

Billions of people in developing countries are as dependent on plastic as people in developed countries. Proper waste management is not available for most of these people. The plastic waste of hundreds of millions of people living along rivers and coasts goes into rivers and oceans. The plastic waste of hundreds of millions of people living elsewhere goes into land areas and waters not designed for this waste.

There is no movement to ensure proper waste management is available to all.

There is no movement to ensure the proper disposal of plastic waste.

Plastic waste gets openly burned in many places, poisoning people and the environment.

Plastic waste gets openly dumped in many places, ensuring it enters into rivers and oceans.

The high technology employed by certain developed countries to properly dispose of plastic waste and use the plastic waste for energy is absent in virtually all of the developing world and in much of the developed world.

1. Unless proper waste management is worldwide, plastic waste will continue contaminating lands, rivers and oceans. No matter how much plastic volunteers or technology removes from the environment in developing countries, it will all return in the absence of proper waste management.

Ocean devices, river devices, other forms of technology, and volunteer efforts, must not obscure the enormous failure to provide billions of people made plastic dependent with proper waste management.

River devices collecting plastic would not have to exist in the first place if people up river had a way to properly dispose of their plastic.

Some people lobby against plastic straws (which should be banned but is only a tiny fraction of the plastic pollution entering the environment daily and that is already in the environment), but sit idly by unconcerned that literally billions of people relying upon plastic will continue dumping their plastic waste into the environment because no other options exists.

The recycling myth, which includes developed countries shipping plastic waste to developing countries already drowning in plastic, must end. Proper disposal of plastic and keeping it out of the environment must become the priority.

The only way to stop the plastic pollution disaster is to employ people to remove plastic waste from the environment and ensure that proper waste management is available to the billions of people in developing countries that are plastic dependent.

Boyan Slat's Ocean Cleanup: Does Reliance On Technology Increase Plastic Pollution?

It is human nature to seek easy answers to complicated problems.

Technology is often relied upon to provide solutions that otherwise cannot be found.

When it comes to plastic pollution, does the reliance on technology come at the expense of less expensive, more effective interventions?

Most plastic pollution can only be removed from the environment by manual labor. Only manual labor, not technology, can effectively remove plastic pollution from river banks, coasts, and most land areas. Only manual labor, not technology, can effectively remove plastic pollution from mangroves, rocky coastlines, coastal forests, forests in general, urban areas, and pretty much everywhere else except deep waters and a few other locations.

In the developing world, there are high levels of poverty. Few can afford to be volunteers. If only some of the tens of millions of dollars that goes towards organizations offering technological solutions went instead towards employing disadvantaged people paid fair wages to remove plastic pollution, far more plastic trash would be recovered.

Recent news reports state that Boyan Slat's river devices will remove 110,000 pounds of plastic from some of the world's most polluted rivers. Every single day millions of pounds of new plastic trash  enters rivers and oceans. Imagine if there is an employed work force providing the necessary manual labor to remove plastic trash from the environment. Not only would this lift people out of poverty, but the amount of plastic they recover would far exceed what river and ocean devices recover. 110,000 pounds of plastic is not much considering the millions of pounds of new plastic trash entering oceans and rivers daily.  Every single day that there is no serious employment program to remove plastic waste from the environment means millions of pounds of plastic that could be recovered in a single day never will be.

River devices and other forms of technology are tools in the fight against plastic pollution.

But when tools become crutches preventing the use of more effective interventions, then they do more harm than good.

Florida Keys, Coral Reefs Worldwide Need Oxybenzone And Octinoxate Ban

An effort by local government in the Florida Keys to protect their coral reefs has met resistance. The Florida Keys wants to ban the use of oxybenzone and octinoxate, two sunscreen ingredients known to harm coral reefs. Bradley, Republican Chairman of the Florida State Senate Appropriations Committee, wants to take the power away from local governments to implement bans, and have the power rest only with the state. So much for Republican rhetoric about decentralized government.

Bradley argues that if the ban takes place, "the only sunscreen that would be affordable is these luxury boutique sunscreens, which sometimes don't work as well as mainstream sunscreen".

There are plenty of inexpensive, mainstream effective sunscreens sold in non boutique places like Walmart, Target, Whole Foods and many more non boutique stores that use coral reef safe non nano zinc oxide and/or titanium oxide. Furthermore, these physical barrier sunscreens are safer than chemical sunscreens which do get absorbed into the body, and are considered harmful by a number of scientists.

People are better off using non nano zinc oxide and/or titanium oxide. It is better for their health, and better for coral reefs. 

In fact, there is not a single place in the world where there are coral reefs where sunscreen containing oxybenzone and octinoxate should be allowed. These chemicals are bad for people and bad for the environment, especially fragile coral reefs. 

If only people valued environmental protection and human health over business interests.

The Left's Love Affair with Dictators And Demagogues

The left loves fat cat, millionaire and billionaire dictators and demagogues, along with brutal Islamic theocracies, as long as they are anti-west and anti-American.

Gorbachev And The New Nuclear Arms Race

Gorbachev recently said during an interview that the world is more unsafe now than ever before. The nuclear weapons threat is escalating.

Instead of sensible world leadership that seeks the resolution of conflict and the reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons, we have instead the opposite.

The new nuclear arms race between Russia and the U.S. is ignored or applauded, despite its complete stupidity, harmfulness and wastefulness.

Other countries seek to become nuclear powers or expand the nuclear arsenals they already have.

Religion, ethnicity, nationalism and any other reason driving the nuclear arms race means nothing once the weapons are unleashed.

The Gray Zone That Does Not Exist And The Nonexistent Left

The nonexistent left eagerly embraces any and all religious theocracies, tyrants, dictators and oligarchs, just so long as they are anti-American and anti-west.

There is no gray zone for them. They, like their small minded compatriots on the right, are incapable of seeing complexity and shades of gray.

The Left Needs A New Left

During the cold war, the Soviets supported brutal dictatorships as long as they called themselves communists. The Americans supported brutal dictatorships as long as they identified themselves as anti communist. Even though the dictators would speak the jargon their sponsors wanted to hear, there was no difference between them. Dictators on the left and dictators on the right proved to be greedy, ruthless leaders that robbed their countries blind.

Not much has changed in the decades since the end of the cold war. The left supports brutal regimes as long as they are against American interests. The right supports brutal regimes as long as they align themselves with American interests. There is a middle ground that increasingly is disappearing - to not support dictatorships of any sort, including religious theocracies.

The left needs a new left instead of what it has now - apologists for some of the most greedy, ruthless, bloodthirsty tyrants.

Red Tide Is Back, And So Is The Weak-Kneed Response

Red tide is natural occurring but made far worse by human activity. People choose lawns and green grass over healthy oceans. The more fertilizer and other harmful runoff ends up in the ocean, the more red tide flourishes. The Gulf Of Mexico already suffers from the heavy fertilizer and chemical load coming from agriculture and other sources. It suffers from the additional fertilizer and chemical load from millions of people that want to live near the coast, and that want perfect green grass no matter how damaging this is to the gulf.

Restricting the use of fertilizers and chemicals, especially in coastal areas, is too controversial for weak kneed politicians to stomach.

Billions Of People Plastic Dependent, With Nowhere to Put Their Plastic Trash

Billions of people dependent on plastic lack the infrastructure and means to properly remove and dispose of plastic waste.

Hundreds of millions of people live along rivers, lakes and coastlines where they depend on plastic but have no infrastructure for the proper removal and disposal of their plastic waste. And thus, it gets dumped into rivers, lakes and oceans.

The failure to ensure proper waste management and proper disposal of plastic waste in developing countries, where billions of people live and where billions of people depend on plastic, ensures that the plastic pollution crisis only gets worse.

This means that the mass dumping of plastic waste into rivers, lakes, oceans and land areas continues daily.

The failure to do anything about this crisis, the continued feel good measures that are nothing more than putting fingers in small holes of a large dam about to crumble, ensures a future of plastic contaminated rivers, lakes, oceans and lands.

There are those that profit and feed off of this crisis.

There are the many corporations that make fortunes from the use of plastic, but do nothing to ensure its proper removal and disposal.

There are extremely rich people and other entities that talk about the plastic pollution crisis, but do not lift a single finger to ensure the billions of people now plastic dependent have their plastic trash properly removed and disposed.

The plastic addiction is not going away. People got addicted, but the means of properly disposing of the plastic waste generated by this addiction was never considered.

How is it acceptable for billions of people to use plastic daily, and then have no means of properly disposing of it? Why is there no outcry, no movement, no outrage to ensure proper waste management worldwide (which means employing people)? Why is there no outcry to ensure proper removal of plastic waste already in the environment (which means employing people to do the manual labor needed)? Why is there no outcry to ensure proper disposal of plastic waste everywhere in the world (either by proper burial, or by the burning methods used in Sweden)?

This crisis is not going away. People want to address it on the cheap, which only makes the crisis worse.

Plastic Pollution And The Illusion Of A War Not Fought

Plastic waste will only get worse because billions of people are now dependent on plastic and live in countries that lack the infrastructure to properly collect plastic waste and dispose of it.

Hundreds of millions of people living along coasts, rivers and lakes in developing countries are as addicted to the use of plastic as are people in the developing world, except they live in places where there is no way to properly dispose of plastic.

 Plastic pollution will continue to worsen as long as there is no serious effort to expend effort and spend money on the following:

1. Manual labor - employ people and pay them fair wages- to remove plastic waste already in the environment.

2. Proper garbage collection of newly generated plastic waste (waste management in developed countries means garbage is usually collected weekly). Waste management and garbage removal is nonexistent throughout much of the developing world. Despite this, under the guise of recycling, some developed countries ship their plastic waste to developing countries already drowning in their own plastic waste. Keeping plastic waste from further contaminating the environment, not recycling, must be the priority. Recycling has become a euphemism for not prioritizing keeping plastic pollution out of the environment. The effort to shame companies selling products packaged in plastic accomplishes little to nothing as long as billions of people using their products continue to lack a way to properly dispose of plastic. Corporations must stop being free of responsibility for where their plastic products end. Proper waste management and proper waste disposal are critically needed for billions of people plastic dependent in developing countries.

3.Secure sites where plastic waste and other harmful trash are appropriately disposed, either by proper burial or by the Swedish model of proper burning (not the open burning that takes place throughout the developing world, in which people are exposed to toxic smoke and the environment is contaminated by toxic ash). Throughout much of the developing world, there is nowhere to put plastic waste, so it continues to be openly burned, or dumped into rivers, lakes, and oceans in communities living along coastlines or other bodies of water. Plastic waste gets dumped on land in places where people do not live along bodies of water. Winds, storms and time disperses the plastic waste dumped on land.

Unless plastic waste is properly collected and removed, which requires human labor that no one wants to pay for, and unless the plastic waste is properly buried or burned, which no one wants to pay for, then no device, no technology, no volunteer cleanup, no beach cleanup, no sale of plastic bracelets that are supposed to mean the removal of a pound of plastic trash (remember, every single day millions of pounds or kilos of plastic trash newly enters into the oceans), no complete ban on plastic straws, will amount to anything more than a feel good effort that will benefit a few people, but will not help the oceans, environment, or wildlife.

With billions of dollars floating around in the hands of foundations, nonprofits, and with many rich people claiming concern about the environment, it is striking that there is no serious effort to ensure the proper removal and disposal of plastic waste in developing countries.

Hundreds of millions of people continue dumping plastic waste into rivers and oceans, with well funded devices and volunteer cleanups capturing an amount nowhere close to the new plastic waste that enters the environment in a single day.

The plastic industry got the world addicted and dependent on plastic. The nonprofit world gets the world addicted to false illusions.

And so, like so many other serious problems, nothing of consequence will be done.

Plastic pollution is not like animal cruelty, dog fighting and other problems in which voiceless populations get exploited and the truth about ineffective and harmful programs and interventions do not come out.

The plastic waste disaster cannot be hidden.

By the time people finally make proper waste management and waste disposal a priority, it will be too late. Instead, people prefer to be placated by devices, plastic straw bans, sporadic volunteerism, and plastic bracelets.

The time to get serious about plastic pollution has tragically not yet arrived.

Plastic Pollution War Is Being Lost. Big Money Made In The Process

There are three possible ways in which plastic pollution can be removed from the environment - by technology, by volunteers, or by employed labor. Technology cannot remove plastic from mangroves, rocky shores, coastal forests, river banks, and most coastal, water and land areas. It cannot remove the microfibers and micro particles already in the oceans and waters, air and land, with trillions more fibers entering every hour from synthetic clothes and many other sources. Volunteerism is extremely limited in many developing countries where few people can afford to be volunteers. If technology or volunteerism worked in the many developing nations that are being environmentally destroyed by plastic pollution, it would have happened already. 

There is no movement to address poverty and plastic pollution by the widespread employment of disadvantaged people to remove plastic pollution from the environment. People would rather complain, protest, support already wealthy organizations claiming to do something, than actually do anything meaningful about plastic pollution. 

There is no movement to ensure plastic waste is properly disposed of worldwide. The plastic entering the oceans from far away places breaks down and contaminates all environments. It does not remain a localized disaster. 

There is no movement to move away from synthetic clothing and other materials and products that release enormous amounts of micro fibers and micro particles.

There is no movement to wean ourselves from the plastic addiction, or at least keep plastic waste out of the environment in all corners of the world. Most places in the world dump plastic and other contaminants in unsecured landfills, or in open pits or on garbage mountains. Or it gets openly burned, exposing people to its toxic smoke and contaminating the environment with its toxic ash.

There is big money in plastic from every single angle, including those that profit from this disaster by selling themselves as the answer and savior. There is hardly a problem in the world that someone, some organization, does not exploit and profit from.

And so the plastic pollution crisis only gets worse. Hundreds of millions, even billions of people in the developing world have become as addicted to the use of plastic as those in the developed world, with no means to properly dispose of the huge amounts of plastic, almost all of which is non recyclable, on which they now depend. And so the plastic accumulates along coastlines and many other areas, destroying coasts, oceans and wildlife, with millions of kilos added daily, breaking down into ever smaller harmful particles that can never be recovered. 

Fair Wage Employment And Plastic Pollution

There are three possible ways in which the serious issue of plastic pollution contaminating coastlines and other areas can be addressed - technology, relying upon volunteers, or by employed labor. Technology cannot remove plastic from mangroves, rocky shores, coastal forests, and many other areas. Volunteerism is extremely limited in many developing countries where few people can afford to be volunteers. If technology or volunteerism worked in the many developing nations that are being environmentally destroyed by plastic pollution, it would have happened already. 

And so the plastic sits, growing larger every day by the addition of more plastic trash,  with much of it breaking down into smaller pieces that can never be recovered. 

There is a critical need to set in motion the large scale employment of disadvantaged people to remove plastic pollution.

In developing countries, the source of a great deal of plastic pollution, there are high levels of poverty and unemployment. People need work, and the environment needs to be cleaned.

Providing impoverished people with work to remove plastic pollution is a straightforward anti poverty, environmental project. 

The employment must pay a fair wage. It cannot be the piecemeal employment practiced in some places in which people are only paid for the recyclable materials they collect. Almost all plastic waste is not recyclable. All plastic trash must be removed from the environment, which requires a great deal of work and effort. Paying people a fair wage helps not only the people employed, but also the environment.

Right now huge amounts of plastic trash litters coastlines and other areas throughout the developing world, with more added every day. The goal, to start a widespread movement employing disadvantaged people to remove plastic waste is as out of reach as ever. 

Plastic waste gets worse every single day, killing seabirds, sea turtles, dolphins, whales, fish and other wildlife. It harms people also, and still nothing gets done. 

One day, perhaps when it is already too late, employing people and paying them a fair wage to remove plastic pollution from coastlines and other areas will finally happen on the massive scale needed. Every day when people that can be working sit idle is another day in which wildlife, people and the oceans are needlessly harmed.