60 Minutes’s Cleaning Up the Plastic in the Ocean

60 Minutes Story, “Cleaning up the plastic in the ocean” ran on August 18, 2019. The story reminded viewers of the following (all quoted):

  • Discarded plastic is piling up around the world and pooling in the ocean …
  • [that plastic is a] miracle product. Cheap to produce and virtually indestructible …
  • [and that cleaning up plastic in the ocean] is like trying to mop up a flooded bathroom but leaving the tap on …
  • … the smaller the piece of plastic … the smaller the animal that can consume it …
  • plastics become a magnet essentially for toxic chemicals …
  • Studies have found … microplastics in everything from supermarket seafood to drinking water, but scientists don’t yet know what all that means for our health …
  • plastic can be fatal to … birds, either by filling up their stomachs and leaving little room for food or by tearing up their insides …
  • the scale of the problem is massive and it’s global …