Wednesday, January 24, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Shop Like a LOCAL
Plastic
12%
Sisters is a tourist town. When you’re a local,
shop like one. Bring your own bag!
Types of bags offered in Sisters
Many businesses in Sisters support — and even sell
Plastic & Paper
their own — reusable bags. The plastic bag epidemic
Paper & Reusable
is threatening wildlife, and eventually coming back to
42%
31%
humans as plastic particles enter the food chain by way
of ocean life. Based on the 23 businesses a Sisters High
Paper
School team interviewed, each year Sisters puts out
approximately 140,000 plastic bags!
15%
Do your part in protecting the environment and...
Shop Like a LOCAL by Bringing Your Own Bag
DATA COLLECTED BY SISTERS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
PLASTIC: Program
offered hands-on
education on issue
Continued from page 1
impacts of riding the bus
and bikes and surveyed com-
munity members. They pre-
sented information to other
students and made a proposal
to the city council.
When they calculated
the results of their inquiries
they ran an advertisement in
The Nugget revealing their
findings.
Givot gave her class a lot
to accomplish, and the stu-
dents rose and often exceeded
her expectations.
...the students felt
empowered to have
a positive impact on
their community.
— Rima Givot
“I was really inspired by
these freshmen and sopho-
more students,” she said. “In
addition to learning about
the biological role of carbon
and ways we can play a part
in how it cycles, the students
felt empowered to have a pos-
itive impact on their commu-
nity. They found a wide range
of ways to encourage positive
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change and felt a connection
to the community. It’s been a
really exciting project!”
Student Mary Root hopes
Sisters-area residents will
get on board as well. Root’s
student team interviewed
tourist-oriented businesses in
town.
“We polled businesses and
asked them how many bags
they used per day and if they
use paper bags,” she said.
“We wanted to know if they
offered reusable bags and
promoted them as a healthier
way to carry items.”
Root found that after the
questions were answered,
business owners were more
aware of how they could mit-
igate the overuse of plastics.
With large masses of
plastic-infused islands called
gyres floating off-shore,
Root found that plastic bags
are a big part of the problem
because they are easily trans-
ported by wind. The garbage
mass in the Pacific Ocean is
called the North Pacific Gyre.
Root learned why these gar-
bage patches are so destruc-
tive to marine life.
“In these gyres, there are
currents that accumulate
materials into one area. There
are lots of nutrients accumu-
lated too, so animals go there
to get the nutrients. They also
ingest the small particles of
plastics that are interspersed
with the nutrients. You can
see sea turtles that have died
and when examined they have
plastics in their stomachs.”
The students’ research
informed them that plastic
bags are threatening wild-
life in and out of the water.
Not only that, humans are
affected through plastic par-
ticles entering the food chain
in the ocean (see related
story, page 21).
You can see sea
turtles that have died
and when examined they
have plastics in their
stomachs.
— Mary Root
Root and many of her
classmates are changing their
behavior since doing the proj-
ect in Givot’s class.
“This has changed me and
made me think more about
it,” said Root. “I used to use
a lot of zip-[close] bags with
my lunches, now my fam-
ily buys reusable bags with
Velcro. I use a lot less plastics
than I used to. The purpose of
the project was to have the
future generation think about
it more.”
21
Sisters man helped
shift tide on plastic
By Katy Yoder
Correspondent
Prior to a law passed
in 1978 — and eventually
enforced starting in 1983
— ocean-going vessels and
barges carrying garbage sim-
ply dumped their waste into
the ocean.
Marine pollution is known
by the acronym MARPOL.
The International Convention
for the Prevention of
Pollution from Ships known
as MARPOL 73/78, is one
of the most important inter-
national marine conven-
tions. After 1983, conditions
began to improve through the
efforts of environmentalists
and concerned mariners who
saw firsthand the devastating
effects of garbage patches that
spread for miles.
One Sisters resident dedi-
cated 17 years of his career
helping shift the tides of the
expanding problem. Retired
Chief Engineer David Hiller’s
career was in the marine
industry. He sailed as chief
engineer for 19 years on con-
tainer ships, tankers and bulk
carriers. During that time he
saw his share of garbage float-
ing on the ocean.
Hiller’s career began in
1966. He saw his first large
mass of garbage, a quarter-
mile in diameter, while head-
ing to Wake Island, which is
southwest of the Hawaiian
Islands.
“Forty or 50 years ago, I’d
go into harbors in India and
Taiwan and they’d be floating
with trash,” Hiller recalled.
“In Japan in the ’60s and ’70s
we’d have to clean our cool-
ing water strainers from plas-
tic bags. There’s been tremen-
dous progress, but we’re not
there yet.”
Hiller wanted to help solve
the problem and educate mar-
iners so they could adhere
to the MARPOL Treaty and
follow marine pollution
regulations.
“We built software pro-
grams to train crews on how
not to pollute the oceans …
not just plastics but other
kinds of pollutions, too. The
program is called Meeting
MARPOL Standards. My
partners and I built an interac-
tive program. It’s on several
thousand ships as a train-
ing program. Crews use it to
keep current and adhere to
regulations.”
Hiller was the subject mat-
ter expert on the project. The
company is still active, and
a demo for their program is
available on their website:
MARPOLtraining.com.
Hiller wants to see every-
one take part in cleaning up
our planet both on and off the
water.
“It makes you angry that
we do this as a humanity,” he
said. “You look at it and it’s no
different than going along the
highway and seeing garbage
coming out of a pick-up truck.
It’s the same thing, it’s just the
ocean is out of most people’s
view. We as a humanity have
got to come up with better
ways. We can’t continue land-
fills. We are going to run out
of places to put our waste.”
SPRD ZUMBA CLASS
Mondays 9 to 10 a.m.
Thursdays from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.
Instructor: Carol Ast. | $6 drop-in. First class is free.
View activities
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and d register
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online!
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www.SistersRecreation.com
1750 W. Mckinney Butte Rd. | 541-549-2091
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541-549-1784
161-C N. Elm St.
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Sisters Industrial Park
157 Sisters Park Dr. • 541-549-3575
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