KALW and Oil

This afternoon I was listening to KALW, "Information Radio," which is basically a small NPR station in the SF Bay Area. There was a KALW News show on around 3:30 that talked about plastics and petroleum and recycling. One interviewee said that a mass of plastic the size of North America was found in the middle of the (Pacific?) Ocean! What?!

Something to think about when you want to buy an Odwalla at the store and just throw the bottle on the ground.

The 2nd half of the show is about Emeryville. The new Bay Street shopping center (mall with expensive and boutiquey shoppes) is built on top of a toxic waste site. That would be gross enough if the site had not previously been part of or adjacent to a native american burial ground. One of the streets near there is called Shellmound, and that is just what was there- a giant mound the size of 2 (American) football fields that included discarded shells from food and the bones of the people who had lived here! The site was bulldozed in the 1920's to make way for a pesticide plant, a paint plant, and something else in the middle. The site was used multiple times for toxic factories! Disgusting. This is about 2 miles from my house.

I am still dying to see the movie that was made about this area- it is called Shellmound