The Fatal Shore, Awash in Plastic
Source: International Herald Tribune
HONG KONG — A recent typhoon off Hong Kong washed half a dozen shipping containers overboard, and it wasn’t long before the cargo — 150 tons of tiny plastic beads — began washing up on the beaches. Local fish farmers also started finding the plastic in the stomachs of their fish.
Panic is perhaps too strong a word to describe the public reaction, but hundreds of worried volunteers turned out to scoop up the pellets using shovels, dustpans and dumpling steamers. Sinopec, the Chinese oil conglomerate that owned the containers, pledged $1.2 million toward the cleanup.
It was about this time, 4,200 miles away, that the photographer and conceptual artist Chris Jordan was wrapping up his seventh trip to Midway Atoll, a small island group smack dab in the middle of the Pacific. He was completing the filming for his documentary about the millions of seabirds who nest at Midway and the threat they face from oceangoing plastic junk.
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