Somewhere in the northern Pacific floats a non-biodegradable petrochemical blob that’s twice the size of Texas. Much of this deadly mess originated when someone innocently took home their shopping in a plastic bag.

In the U.S. alone, we throw away 100 billion plastic bags each year — the equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil. Yikes!

What can you do? Tune in to Orli Cotel’s Sierra Club Radio interview with Katherine Mieszkowski, of Salon, to find out.

ALG member Ken, with his 3 children, collected a full bag of trash Sunday at Bass Lake Park, Holly Springs NC. Walking along the 1 mile stretch of shoreline, there were plenty of items that needed cleaning up, including mono-filament string, plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Trash is unsightly, but the mono-filament string can also be directly harmful to wildlife, such as cranes and fish.

ALG will be working to make ‘clean-up outings’ a regular, planned activity. If you’d like to participate, please refer to ‘About ALG’ page for contact info.