“Only we humans make waste that nature can’t digest.”

Out in the Pacific Ocean, there is a Texas-sized island composed completely of waste and debris.  It began accumulating over 50 years ago, when plastics and a disposable lifestyle became part of the norm.

The sustainable answer to this environmental catastrophe is to reduce our plastic production and consumption.  But scientists also advocate for the prevention of plastics ever reaching water bodies, through and proper disposal via recycling facilities.  What then can be done with the massive island of plastic debris in the Pacific?

Companies such as Method, could be the beginning of a solution.  The company developed a new plastic soap bottle made from the plastic debris found in the Pacific.  The “sea minerals” soap will be available for purchase in November.

“To create the bottle, Method employees and volunteers from Sustainable Coastlines and the Kokua Hawaii Foundation scoured Hawaii’s shores, picking up more than 3,000 pounds of beached plastic, including a still-inflated basketball from Japan and a Korean Coke bottle.

Method, which makes designer home cleaning products, recycled that plastic to make 10 percent of the plastic that goes into the Ocean bottle (the other 90 percent is recycled, too, just not from the ocean).”

Read more about the new bottle design at WIRED.

If you haven’t already heard about the massive garbage island that has accumulated in the Pacific Ocean, I suggest you start doing some research.  It is enough to make you rethink ever using a plastic bag, plastic bottle, or plastic anything ever again.

I reccomend you start with the TED talk by Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, who pioneered the research regarding the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”.

If you have more time, I highly recommend the film “Message in the Waves” from the BBC Natural History Unit.  The film addresses some of the environmental challenges facing the people and wildlife of the Hawaiian Islands.

“Although the documentary is from a Hawaiian perspective it is really a global film. Because of their size, location and social history, the Hawaiian Islands represent a microcosm of the planet and are in a unique position to tell all of us where we are going wrong and what we can do to help put things right.”