Who’s Drinking Beer On The Bottom Of The Ocean?

Go to the deepest place on the planet. Dive down nearly 7 miles into the Mariana Trench and what do you expect to find? The ruins of Atlantis, previously unknown sea monsters, Congress's approval ratings? All could be expected, but what one scientist found tells a troubling tale of pollution.

No Place Is Safe From Human Carelessness

Oceanographer Dr Dawn Wright was 10,780 meters below the frothy foam of the Pacific Ocean, some 200 miles southwest of Guam when her two-person sub spotted something embedded in the Challenger Deep, the bottom-most sandbox on Earth. Was it a gold doubloon? The key to Davey Jones Locker? No, it was...an empty beer bottle.

The jokes write themselves.

• Man, I have been down at times in my life and I admit to having had a beer or two and I'll even admit to maybe littering once or twice but I have n-e-v-e-r, ever been that far down! (so don't blame me!)
• Wow! After the Dylan Mulvaney debacle, I knew Bud Light had taken a deep dive but this is ridiculous!
• The most interesting man in the world says, "I don't always drink beer when I deep dive in the ocean, but when I do, I always pack out my empties."

Dr. Wright say the bottle was green. Ok, Heineken, Stella Artois, Beck's, and Peroni, we are looking at YOU! Pick up after yourselves!

Ocean Pollution Isn't Funny

Cut the comedy, ocean pollution is no laughing matter. As Dr Wright suggests, there is no place on earth that's pollution-proof. Upon discovering the bottle she wrote:

Further evidence that we MUST as humanity do BETTER by the ocean and for the health of habitats that we ourselves share & ultimately depend on!!! 

Washington, Oregon, California Beer Drinkers: 'Fess Up

DNA and fingerprints lose their impact at this kind of depth so it would be impossible to tell for sure, BUT the bottle was found in the Pacific which means it could have come from any of the West Coast states and it even could have come from someone here in Yakima, since recycling glass is off-limits in Yakima County. Why is that?

Glass is not accepted in curbside or commercial co-mingled recycling. If the glass were to break in the curbside container, during transit, or the sorting process, the shards from the glass mix in with the recyclable paper. These shards of glass cause problems for paper recyclers and can make the mixed paper or cardboard un-recyclable.

At Our Worst, We Ask Too Much Of Mother Nature

In all seriousness, the bottom line is that the ocean is a dumping ground of epic and unsustainable proportions but it's plastic, not beer bottles that pose the biggest environmental threat. A recent PBS special paints one ugly picture of the problem.

An estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic enter the ocean every year — that's roughly equivalent to dumping two garbage trucks full of plastic into the oceans every minute. The problem is too big for consumers to solve.

At that rate, it won't be long before that lone glass beer bottle will have plenty of plastic pals to keep it company. Let's not let that happen.