Editor:
A bottle with a message from Pi didn't turn up on my walk on the beach today. I will continue to search for it.
What did turn up were lots of flotsam from the sea. Mostly plastic but also a Birkenstock sandal and part of an automobile bumper. Same kind of stuff Pi came across when he and Richard Parker were adrift on the Pacific.
Turns out there is a humungous patch of plastic floating around out in the north Pacific, killing sea life and messing up the aquatic food chain, so I gathered up a small bag full off the beach. It took five minutes.
Turns out if I did that every day for a year, I would pick up 365 square feet of plastic flotsam; 119 years later, I would have rid the planet of an acre of pollutants.
Next time on the beach, pick up a small bag of washed up, nonhazardous floaters. Most of it can go in the recycle bin.
Lee Eward
