Plastic, plastic, everywhere…

We were in recently in Delray Beach for a long weekend with family. We don’t have beaches here and it’s definitely something I miss from our old life so we went up there to hang on the beach, eat some great food, and to cheer on our old home team as they took on FAU. While we had a nice weekend, the amount of plastic washing up everyday was heartbreaking and overwhelming. We spent over hour every day cleaning up plastic from the seaweed line. We could have spent all day doing it and we’d barely make a dent. All the while, sea turtle nests were sectioned off and hatching amidst the debris 🙁

Plastic wasn’t widely used in consumer packaging until the 1960s, just over 50 years ago. In that short time span it’s managed to contaminate the entire planet. Plastic has been found in the some of the most remote places on the planet, as deep as 11km beneath the ocean’s surface. 

Only 9% of recyclable plastic is actually recycled!

We have to reduce the use!

A scary thing about plastics is that they don’t just “go away.” When you can’t see it anymore it’s still there in the form of micro-plastics which contaminate the environment, enter the food chain, and you. It’s choking our oceans, killing sea creatures, and poisoning all of us. Check out this fact sheet from the Earth Day Network from some shocking stats.

Top and bottom left: two bags full of plastic collected on the beach in under an hour.

So what’s the solution? It’s not recycling, I can tell you that. If I had a dime for every time someone told me “yeah but it’s recyclable” I could buy myself some nice new underwater camera gear. Do you know how much of recyclable plastic is actually recycled? Around 9%! When I started researching recycling that number SHOCKED me as I’m sure it did you. Here’s a great article from National Geographic if you want to learn more about the plastic crisis. I’m not saying don’t recycle, absolutely recycle everything you can but it’s not the solution. We can’t keep using plastic at our current rate assuming recycling is the answer.

The only solution is to use less by changing our habits. We are all responsible for the state we’re in and we’re all responsible for getting us out of it. If we band together, make changes in our own lives, spread the word to others, and demand eco-friendly packaging from companies we can turn this ship around.

Stay tuned for some tips & tricks for using less plastic we’ve incorporated into our lives.

Until next time … eliminate some plastic from your life! 🙂 

Stay Warm Friends!