What happens to discarded plastic bottles?

[WildlifeNate]

Most rivers here in Texas have collections of plastic bottles along their course. They collect at log jams, in eddies, and get deposited at the high water line during floods. I don't know where they all come from...there are just so many. It really makes me think twice about buying anything in a plastic bottle, though.



I saw this opossum as I was out working on my research project setting camera traps.

Shortly after spying the little guy, it decided to give me a fascinating show. It started chewing on one of the plastic bottles in the pile.



After puncturing it, it proceeded to lap up the sweet residue from inside.





It spied me as I tried getting closer. After this, it walked behind a large stump to try to hide from me.

[SARtech]

Them come from "A-holes" that throw them off their boats in the summer. We have them too along the shores of the rivers here. Probably duck hunters.

Kristine

[WesternGuy]

Not sure about the bottles, but last summer, my wife and I took a drive out to a Ducks Unlimited development - three huge cascading sloughs - just covered in water birds and shore birds, plus the odd muskrat. As we were driving out in the farm country, I could not believe the number of plastic bags of all sizes, shapes and colours that were either trapped on the barbwire fences or had blown into the ditches. This place is an hours drive from the nearest, large, metropolitan centre and about 10 miles from a small, farm town to the west. Personally, I am all for banning these things. Anyway my 0.02 cents.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

[Martin Brazil]

Shocking things, plastic bags. I took a look at my shopping and probably more than a quarter of it is packaging rather than food. Even if you are not some ignorant fool who throws their rubbish off their boat or out of their car window we still have to face the fact that we are still contributing to the plastic bag/bottle problem, when you put them in your rubbish bin (that's a trash can) they don't just disappear.
I try to make a point of taking at least some rubbish home with me every time I go out for a walk and I also avoid the use of plastic bags etc as much as possible. Maybe this helps a bit.
Nice shots of the opossum too.

[WildlifeNate]

Plastic bags are a whole issue unto themselves. It's good to see retailers selling reusable bags now. Even in the little redneck town where I live, Wal-Mart, Lowes, and the other grocery stores all have them. When I do get the plastic bags, I tend to reuse them for lunches, picking up dog waste, stuff like that.

The plastic bottles astound me, though. This particular series of photos was taken along the Trinity River, which is the major river that flows through Dallas. The blue in the first image is actually the river (20-30ft down a ravine from where I was). I'm sure that plays a role in the amount of trash that gets deposited at the high water line. Still, on rivers closer to me (that flow through more remote areas), the problem is still there and appears to be little different from this site.

I just cannot believe that ALL of those bottles were tossed out car windows and ended up in the river. Maybe I'm naive for it, but it seems to me that there has to be another source for those bottles.