When I mention to people that I have a trash blog, I am often told the story of a garbage barge that circled the world looking for a place to dump its contents. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that people remember this tale from the late eighties. After all, who could forget a story that involves a standoff between a tugboat hauling Long Island waste and the Mexican Navy? Today, while looking into the Marbro barge and the tugboat Break of Day (the dynamic duo that star in the infamous tale), I discovered that a set of paper recycling principles has since been named for the barge.
The tugboat captain, incidentally, was from Louisiana, a state which refused to let in the trash and which, today, suffers more than ever from garbage problems of its own.
Tags: Break of Day, Garbage Barge
everydaytrash 
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 8:28 am |
[…] The Times’ 2010 holiday gift guide slide show text efficiently sums the book up as “The story of a barge carrying 3,168 tons of garbage that couldn’t find a home — and how its ill-fated journey helped usher in the recycling era.” Can’t wait to read it. Here’s a link to the longer review with more on that true story, which we’ve mentioned here before. […]