Change.org - Cleanup Millions of Plastic Pellets Spilled in the Gulf Coast

Cleanup Millions of Plastic Pellets Spilled in the Gulf Coast

Ivana Dillas started this petition to Environmental Protection Agency, Greg Langley, Department of environmental quality, John Bel Edwards, cma cgm, Port of Gretna, Port of Algiers, Port of New Orleans, United States Coast Guard, Major... and it now has 9,538 signatures

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*IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED TO HOLD RESPONSIBLE PARTIES FOR OCEAN AND SHORELINE PLASTIC CLEAN-UP* On August 2, 2020, the cargo ship CMA CGM Bianca, which flies under the Malta flag,  en route from China and South Korea to deliver goods to Houston, Mobile, and New Orleans, spilled a large container of plastic "nurdles" into the waters of the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico.  The nurdles broke from their sacks and dispersed into the water. A typical 40-foot shipping container can hold about 25 tons (!!!) of plastic nurdles.   According to Mark Benfield, an oceanographer and plastic pollution expert at Louisiana State University, there are "millions if not billions of nurdles in the Mississippi right now." Large quantities of nurdles have washed up in Gretna, Algiers Point, Crescent Park in Bywater and the Chalmette Battlefield in St. Bernard Parish. In a one-square-foot quadrant of Crescent Park, Benfield estimated as many as 49,500 nurdles. These nurdle microplastics are poisoning and destroying the essential marine life and animals of the Gulf of Mexico, for which many locals’ livelihood depends. If that doesn’t make you livid and demanding action, the microplastics caused by this vicious spill will be consumed by the entire country in the fish and shellfish we consume; We are being poisoned, our oceans and shorelines destroyed and littered, while the parties responsible think we are stupid, unimportant, and our waters dispensable.  Currently, the powers of be, specifically Greg Langley of the Department of Environmental Quality, comically says, "THERE IS NO TIMELINE FOR DETERMINING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE SPILL OR WHETHER THERE WILL BE A CLEANUP EFFORT." NO MORE MUST WE ALLOW BILLIONAIRE CONGLOMERATES TO POLLUTE OUR SEAS AND COASTLINE! Despite what they have us believe in their pandering elections, most of their money comes from toxic plastic pollutant businesses in China, who truly could care less about polluting our oceans and food.  PLEASE JOIN ME IN DEMANDING CLEAN-UP ACTION FOR SALVATION AND PROTECTION OF OUR MARINE LIFE, WHO HAVE NO SAY IN THIS MATTER, OUR COAST LINES, AND OUR PSYCHICAL HEALTH FROM MICROPLASTICS. We must set a precedent that we will no longer allow billionaire businesses profiting off our backs, to pollute our waters, endanger and destroy the marine life which so many locals depend on and which our planet needs to survive.  We must no longer allow the rhetoric to exclude us because pollution and negligence of this caliber is an atrocity, an abomination, and amoral.

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