Plastic- ocean – a 100% human-caused disaster
The disposable plastic bottle symbolizes waste and litter around the world. But it is not just plastic bottles and careless littering that threaten to turn the oceans from life-sustaining to life threatening.
Bottles and bags. Discarded toys, product packaging and cheap holiday decorations. Household and industrial waste of a thousand kinds.
Littered, dropped, dumped. Used despite safer alternatives. Carelessly disposed, improperly managed. Not reduced, not reused and not recycled.
Rolling, blowing, floating and flowing into the world’s oceans.
Plastic-free ocean – a 100% human-accomplishable goal
Plastic in the oceans is entirely caused by human action and human inaction. It has as much potential to do harm as the worst climate change scenario and is having greater immediate effects, yet it so far receives comparatively no attention, and very little private or government action or funding.
There are a number of ways that marine science, waste management, recycling and materials experts, biochemists and medical professionals might be brought together to work on the interrelated problems from a number of critical angles. But currently, there are no major collaborative efforts among these disciplines.
Changing these situations will require raising awareness and education to motivate changes in consumer behavior. It will take cooperation from businesses to change products and packaging. It will take political action to improve waste management and recycling practices. And it will require financial support for research to find ways to recover and reprocess the millions of tons of plastic already accumulated in marine environments, and other ways to remedial already existing biological and human health effects.
There are many simple and economically practical solutions for reducing the use of plastics, for safely and appropriately reusing certain plastic items, and for improving the handling of plastic waste to make sure that it enters the recycling stream rather than the typical waste stream.
How to keep the problem from getting worse
Consumers need to be educated about how to reduce, reuse and recycle plastics. Of these actions, the most important by far is to REDUCE,REUSE, RECYCLE the use of plastic in every aspect of daily living. This is neither as difficult nor inconvenient as it seems, and it can deliver long-term health benefits and immediate cost savings.
Spreading the word
Plastic waste, and particularly its accumulation and breakdown in the world’s oceans, are a far larger problem than heart disease or cancer, and unquestionably contribute to both of these conditions.
Plastic in the oceans is more damaging and far-reaching than deforestation, habitat destruction and other environmental issues, and it is the most directly actionable of all environmental threats.
Spread the word.
Organizations like Ocean Girl Project needs your support, please CONTRIBUTE by spreading the word. The Ocean Girl Project’s primary purpose is affordable educational and sustainable actions for our kids in Hawaii .
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