• Bookstore

We saw a conservationist walk around an albatross nesting site, picking up plastic rubbish from the carcases of dead albatrosses, and we're not talking about little bits of plastic, we're talking recognisable items like printer cartridges, toothbrushes, combs, golf balls, and disposable lighters.

"How can a bird swallow such large items?" you cry. Because they are enormous. Here are some facts about Albatrosses:

  * They have the largest wingspan of any bird on earth (up to 11 feet ? if you are 6 feet tall, that makes one wing almost as tall as you);

  * They live for up to 60 years, but recent research has shown that their life spans are falling, rapidly;

  * They have life mates. If their mate dies they might never mate again;

  * They have a slow reproductive rate, one chick a year, sometimes one every two years.

Plastic, in particular, has a huge environmental impact: it's a petroleum-based product; it take years to biodegrade (some plastics 10-20 years, others hundreds); as plastic breaks-down it simply gets smaller, so it's the albatross with the larger objects, but fish further down the line.

Plastic is such a ubiquitous substance, look around you right now. The majority of the objects around your computer, and the computer itself, has a large amount of plastic composition, what are we going to do about it? For starters, let's dispose of it as responsibly as possible.