Plastic Poultry -- Off With Its Head

     Yeah, yeah, I'm a spoilsport. So what? I'd rather save real whales than fake ducks.

     The big-and-getting-bigger Duck-A-Thon did its bit in Huntington Beach over the weekend, dumping thousands of plastic rubber ducks off the pier -- first ones to the beach winning their sponsors a prize, and the rest going who-knows-where.

    It's for a very good cause -- a community clinic -- but not doing it is a very good cause, too. In our part of the Pacific Ocean, there's six times more plastic than plankton -- six times. Along the North Pacific shores, a hundred thousand sea mammals are killed every year from gobbling plastics that they thought were edible.

    The plastic poisoning of the oceans isn't getting better, and the once-amusing spectacle of tides full of yellow rubber ducks isn't helping. 

    We're a smart country -- if we can stamp out crackers shaped like goldfish, someone can come up with an edible, floating, ocean-friendly food substance and make it look like a duck. Because otherwise, in this case, if it looks like a duck and floats like a duck and quacks like a duck -- it's deadly.

-- Patt Morrison

Patt Morrison's column appears Thursdays in The Times.

Photo courtesy of Community Care Health Centers

Comments

[Mary Ellen]

Another example of Southern California PSEUDO-ENVIRONMENTALISM...when environmentalism is convenient here...then it's done...when it isn't it remains the same status quo.

[Amanda Wood]

I agree, Pat. THAT IS INSANE! Why weren't they slapped with some sort of dumping or littering fine? Or if this is annual, why hasn't a council person stepped forward to stop this ritual?

This is a perfect of example of people not thinking. Have fun today and worry about the planet tomorrow. What a disgrace.

[Critical Thinking]

Geeze people, practice a little critical thinking will ya?

Those ducks don't STAY in the water! The tide (and hundreds of beach goers and volunteers) make sure they get to shore.

The whole point of the event is to sell ducks to raise money for healthcare - if the ducks got lost at sea, how would we know who the winners were???

The ducks are numbered sequentially and ACCOUNTED FOR at the end of the event. Yeah, it takes hours, but we do it with the help of some very dedicated volunteers.

Maybe you bloggers should check out the FACTS before you post in an effort to stir a pot that doesn't exist!!!