Please meet Pete, who greets everyone who is entering the Shem Creek Park Boardwalk. This wonderful new park is in Mount Pleasant, just across the bridge from Charleston. Isn't he fascinating?
"From the tires at the base of the sculpture, to his bottle-capped
beak, Pete the Pelican is covered by marine trash to raise awareness of
the ever-growing problem of marine debris and how it affects local
waterways and sea life.
Pete provides a glimpse of the trash that
pervades coastal waterways. Trash that gets into the ocean eventually
ends up ashore or trapped in ocean currents in a huge whirlpool created
by converging currents.
These current convergences, or gyres, are
places where garbage and wildlife both gather. Mixed with the seaweed
are fragments of plastic which can entangle and hurt wildlife. When the
plastic degrades and becomes brittle, it breaks down into smaller
particles that are ingested by wildlife.
Did you know that
according to the Ocean Conservancy, the top six items listed on the
International Coastal Cleanup’s 2011 Marine Debris report include
cigarettes, plastic beverage bottles, plastic bags, caps, food wrappers
and plastic dinnerware?"
Read more by clicking
HERE.
