O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, great and wide;
creeping things innumerable are there,
living things both small and great.
26 There go the ships
and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.
Psalm 104: 24-26 NRSV
Are you aware that there was an international conference held a few weeks ago to address the growing scourge of plastic waste, including the untold number of tons which make their way into waterways and oceans? There wasn't much coverage in the media. Once again nations spun their wheels, or their propellers, because humanity is addicted to the stuff and we don't know how to detox.
Some of that plastic is visible, an eyesore, as we discover each summer as we visit Newfoundland, including this year. In June of 2024 we visited the astonishing Haida Gwaii, the archipelago off the coast of British Columbia. Sadly we had evidence from beaches in both directions that Canada is plasticized from sea to shining sea. Much of the plastic in the oceans is invisible, tiny particles and nurdles we don't notice but ends up in every ecosystem on the planet.
The bible has nothing to say about plastics because this invention is only about a century old. Scripture has a lot to say about caring for Creation, including the oceans. I feel strongly that this is an issue for Christians to address, even though it might not seem to be "gospel" at first blush.
There is a project in Italy called Archeoplastica that is both artiistic and chilling. Here are a few paragraphs from an article in The Guardian:
Enzo Suma, a naturalist guide, has always picked up rubbish during his walks along Carovigno beach, a stretch of coastline lapped by clear blue waters close to his home in Salento, an area of Puglia in the heel of Italy’s boot.
During one walk, Suma, 44, spotted a washed-up bottle of Ambre Solaire sunscreen. He was about to throw it away when he noticed something unusual: the price printed on the bottle was in lire, meaning it must have been produced before the euro replaced the lira in Italy.In fact, after delving further, he was astonished to discover that the bottle dated back to the late 1960s.
A clear testament to the longevity of plastic and its persistence in the environment, the vintage suntan lotion became the catalyst for Suma’s creation of Archeoplastica, an online museum that comprises more than 500 plastic relics washed ashore on beaches all over Italy.
“Whereas before I didn’t pay too much attention to what I collected, from that moment on I started to look at everything very, very carefully,” said Suma, who studied environmental science at Ca’ Foscari university in Venice before returning to Puglia.
He added: “It’s one thing to be taught that plastic lasts for centuries and never degrades, and another to see it with your own eyes.”
About 11m tonnes of plastic waste ends up in the world’s oceans each year via rivers or after being dumped by people along shorelines or chucked into the sea from fishing vessels.
The most recent discovery, which is yet to be officially added to the Archeoplastica inventory, is a 45rpm vinyl record picked up on a beach by a seven-year-old boy who was in Puglia on holiday with his family. After Suma’s nephew miraculously managed to bend the record back in the shape, it was played on an old turntable and was revealed to be Jimmy Fontana’s Il Mondo, a song released in 1965.
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