19 October, 1998

The weather has taken a dive for the worse again. The flights from Christchurch, New Zealand bringing supplies and people were cancelled again. The temperature only reached a high today of zero fahrenheit. The wind was blowing too and it felt colder than when it was -20. I am glad I had to stay in all day today. I have to go out tomorrow afternoon on a fish collecting trip so I hope the weather is better.

This morning the first thing I had to do was attend Trash School. The trash policy here in Antarctica should be copied by every city in the United States. Practically everything here is collected and recycled or sent to the states for recycling. There are trash cans for every type of trash imaginable. It is obvious that not everything is recyclable but it is properly disposed of but not in Antarctica. Because this place is a true wilderness every attempt is mad to keep it clean and uncontaminated. This was not always the case. In the 1970's McMurdo Station dumped almost all of its trash in pits or on the ice where it eventually sunk into the bay. In the 1990's a massive cleanup removed most of the trash from the bays and landfills. There are presently several ongoing studies watching the recovery of the McMurdo Bay area. It is now a crime to leave any trash anywhere but in a proper trash receptacle.

As I stated above you would not believe the number of different trash containers. In the computer room alone there are cans for 12 different types of trash. Some of the different types are: Food waste, foil, aluminum, burnables, white paper,light metals, heavy metals, plastic, clothing, cardboard, glass,

batteries. People are very serious here about recycling and proper disposal. It is too bad we are not like this in the states.

The rest of the day was spent in the lab again running my tests. I again extracted blood from all of my fish and injected some of them with the t3 and thiourea hormones. There is not much to write about there except to tell any that are worried about the fish that I fish put them into an anesthetic so that they suffer no pain. There should be some excitement tomorrow as I head outdoors again and then again on Wednesday and Thursday as we are going on our long trips and should be running into some penguins. That ends another day.

See ya.