Lake Pleasant Gyre

The Gyre, a plastic littered site in the middle of the ocean, inspired me to promise to consume 10 pounds less plastic this year. The Gyre is so out of sight, it is so easy to ignore, it is so simple to forget and not care about. This weekend, as I walked to the marina at Lake Pleasant, I took this photo of a local mini-gyre. The environmental disgrace is so near my home I have to take it personally.

Spring winds have whipped Lake Pleasant and it rained several days ago. The lake’s water level has risen to capacity. This combination pushes floating material windward into compacted surface mats, mostly along Pleasant’s shorelines. These mats are for the greater part brown mulchy organic material; dead leaves, swollen twigs and rotting cacti with still-dangerous barbs. The sad fact is the organic matter is punctuated with plastic; bottles, wrappers, even flip-flops.

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