Plastic everywhere - dangling from trees, cartwheeling across streets, stuck in bushes, smushed into the ground and strung like so many holiday lights along freeway fences.  And that's just what we can see - but all of it goes somewhere and that place is our planet's oceans.  The majority of the plastic is thrown into streets, eventually goes down storm drains, will go down into a river and finally flow out into the ocean.

Would it surprise you to know that there is an island of toxic plastic garbage larger than the size of Texas floating in the northern Pacific between California and Hawaii? Here are some more fun facts (from the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation):

• Only about 2% of U.S. plastic is recycled
• Approximately 100,000 sea mammals and turtles die every year ingesting or getting tangled in plastic
• 50% of all marine litter is plastic
• According to the EPA, somewhere between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide every year
• All the plastic that has ever been made is still around - it's insidious and does not degrade.

So why am I bringing this up in a real estate forum?  Well, I hope we care about where we live, right here in Winnetka, Kenilworth, Wilmette, Glencoe and other North Shore villages.  We paint, trim, landscape, tuckpoint, sweep, and clean our properties endlessly.  But we seem to be ignoring the plastic stuff all around us - I know because I'm cleaning it up. 

You've seen me - jogging early in the morning with my hands full of the dirty stuff.  Walking my dog in the evenings and picking it out of the dirt.  I'm not cleaning your yards, mind you, you can do that.  But I am picking it up everywhere else - along the Green Bay Trail, the lakefront, parks, and other walkways.  Sometimes on the weekends I head out with a large black bag and work on the worst spots and the bag gets filled in a very short time (especially after our teenagers have partied in the bushes along the trail and left behind dozens of empty beer cans and bags.) 

I'm just asking for a little help here - I can't do it alone.  Here's what you can do:

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  •·          PLEASE switch to canvas shopping bags - they're sturdy and reusable.  Most grocery stores sell them now and they are also available online.  Or contact me - I've got boxes of them in my garage and I'll send you a few.

  •·          Take the canvas bags everywhere - to the bookstore, clothing and shoe stores, the mall - they all stuff your purchases into plastic

  •·          Make sure your plastic garbage is securely thrown out - it's lightweight and will float right out of the can.

  •·          PICK IT UP if you see it.  The problem is you're not seeing it because it's so ubiquitous.  Whether walking to your car or walking for exercise, it takes nothing to swoop them up and dispose of them properly.

It's cool now to embrace environmentally safe practices.  Entire houses are being built "green" and realtors are specializing in selling them.  A growing wave of businesses are using green models in product development, packaging and other technology.  Organic and sustainable farmer's markets have never been more popular.

So just help me out - pick it up and throw it out! 

Watch this video on the North Pacific Garbage Patch: