Just for the record, I observed a seal on our harbor buoy last Friday. He (or she) was fine.

More seriously, flotsam from Japan is nothing new. I have picked up lots of glass fishing net floats along the windward shores of the Channel Islands, items that had to originate in Japan. They have been replaced by black plastic floats, also from Japan, judging from the Kanji characters embossed on them. It's the counter clockwise circulation in the Northern Pacific.

As for all the plastic in mid-ocean, I am reminded of the words in Pogo - "We have met the enemy, and he is us" - all of us.

"How to get a free Walrus meal after scaring off a Polar Bear after its dispatched said Walrus"
Is this considered a health issue, a safety issue, or a sanity issue?
"How to keep warm in winter by snuggling up to a Grizzly bear"
This only keeps you warm for 24 hours, then you exit the bear's alimentary canal.

Can't say that I'm a fan of any of them. Or Bear Grylls. The only thing 've seen Lundin in was a short vid where he made some sort of heated shelter with plastic or a tarp. The whole barefoot and in shorts in the mountains during winter kind of made me leery of him.