Seabirds eating plastic. Recyclers struggling. This is what California’s waste crisis looks like

Seabirds eating plastic. Recyclers struggling. This is what California’s waste crisis looks like

5 years ago
Anonymous $9jpehmcKty

https://www.siliconvalley.com/2019/08/03/seabirds-eating-plastic-recyclers-struggling-this-is-what-californias-waste-crisis-looks-like/

It was more than a year after the seabird died and washed up on a California beach before Jessie Beck prepared to reveal its last meals. Holding its stomach over a laboratory sink, Beck snipped open the slick tissue. With a series of plinks, the stomach contents slumped out onto the metal sieve below.

Inside were the remains of seabird food, like hooked squid beaks the size of fingernail clippings. Mostly, though, Beck found hard shards of plastic, soggy cardboard, styrofoam, and a maroon hunk of mystery meat that looked like beef jerky—until Beck cracked it open. Its innards were pure white: more styrofoam.