I Just Want to Say One Word. Plastics.

Plastics. A wonder of modern technology. Cheap, durable, moldable, and eternal. The stuff lasts forever.

Forget diamonds. If Ian Fleming wrote his famous Bond novel today, its title would be "Plastics are Forever." The half-life of plastic is longer than William Shatner's acting career.

Don't you hate buying something that's sealed in one of those plastic "blister packs"? You know, the kind where you nearly impale yourself with a pair of scissors when you're trying to open it?


Not only is the "blister pack" plastic, but what it contains is also made of the wonderful stuff.

Think about all those plastic containers for shampoo, Windex, motor oil, bottled water, soda, talcum powder, make-up, and razor blades. Do you ever wonder where it all ends up?

There's a great article in this week's "Pacific Northwest Magazine" that describes the terrible pollution caused by our voracious appetite for plastics.

Apparently, a lot of our plastic thing-a-ma-jigs end up in the Pacific Ocean in an area called the "Garbage Patch", which is a dead spot created by ocean currents. The Garbage Patch is twice the area of the state of Texas and is chock-full of our cast-off junk.

If that wasn't bad enough, wildlife is eating the stuff and dying because of it.

Bad stuff. This is yet another example of how our mindless consumption is poisoning our planet.

What? A Republican who's concerned with the environment?

There you go, stereotyping again. I'm a Republican and you bet I'm concerned.

So the next time you're thinking about buying another Happy Meal so your kid can play with the plastic doohickey inside, think about the Pacific Ocean's "Garbage Patch", give him an apple, and take him to the park instead.