Sargasso Sea

[Old Town]

We used to have a giant mound of garbage and refuse down here in Key West over near the golf course. Everyone called it Mount Trashmore. When you consider the highest land point is 16 feet above sea level, it's easy to understand how 200 foot tall Mount Trashmore got its name.

Place used to rise above the island and had swarms of sea gulls circling the peak. Like mist on some African mountain. Trashmore was where all our Lower Keys junk was brought to. Some of it was burned for power but most just compacted through age. And the mountain grew like an oyster shell. One layer at a time.

Finally the planet saving people had to do something. We had our junk trucked north to Miami. Mount Trashmore over the years was carted away. Good thing, right? We all thought so.

Last year I'm up in Miami on my sailboat for a week with visitors. Six of us anchored in Miami and taking in the scene. One lady we were with sees a long line of flat barges moving out of the harbor and heading for open water. Seagulls all over the line of barges. That same mist from the earlier African mountain in Key West.

I was to find out later that all the Keys trash along with most of Miami's still gets taken out to sea and into the Stream where it's dumped. Diapers, banana peals, used condoms and Chlorox bottles, all of it straight into the drink where it get sucked north and east and finally left to spin in the Sargasso Sea.

I used to think we were making some headway with pollution and things like that. Now? I don't think so much now.

Old Town

 

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[fossis]

That is 'unbelievable' that this is happening in this day & age.

Fossis............

 

[The Beep Goes On]

Fools...aren't dump fees high enough to pay for proper treatment? We need to stop buying all the packaged crap the sell us.

 

[Old Town]

I found out later many coastal cities in the US still do this. New York chief among them. Millions of tons of solid trash unsorted with no recycling. They load it on barges that open on the bottom and take it out a 100 miles or so and let it go. It sweeps around the North Atlantic Drift and eventually into the center of the Atlantic (Sargasso Sea) or to the ocean floor.

OT

 

[RON (PA)]

That is unbelievable. I thought with all the recycling programs in place stuff like this was not supposed to happen. Where is Greenpeace when you need them? Someone should follow them and record it so they can be fined.

 

[spartacus53]

Maybe they can use that garbage to make a mountainous boarder along Mexico We can kill 2 birds with one stone

 

[Old Town]

That is unbelievable. I thought with all the recycling programs in place stuff like this was not supposed to happen. Where is Greenpeace when you need them? Someone should follow them and record it so they can be fined.

Ron, you can go out and film any time you want. No effort is made to hide this action. They don't go out at night as far as I know. We have Keys recycling and I've found out most of it all gets dumped into the same lot in Miami and hauled away.

The recycling angle is a good idea not carried out. The towns or counties must appear to be complying to qualify for other unrelated government programs like road and bridge repair. We want our roads fixed so we play the federal "recycle" game. Most of it ends up cycling in the Sargasso Sea.

OT