It doesn’t biodegrade, and no naturally occurring organisms can break it down. As a result, churning in the five oceanic gyres is an estimated 100 million tons of marine litter which is there to stay. What’s more, an estimated 20 million tons of plastic litter enter the ocean each year. This plastic pollution entangles, or is ingested by the sea creatures we love, harming or slowly killing them.” ~surfrider.org
In our newsletters we include a Rise Above Plastics article each month to offer you tips for eliminating single-use plastics from your daily routine. Here is a recap of the RAP tips from the last 6 months.
April: Skip the Straw or Bring Your Own reusable straw.
May: Released Balloons Are Litter, so don’t release them, ever!
June: Give up the plastic bottles, refill your own bottle.
July: Bring Your Own To Go Container, skip the foam when you take it to go.
August: It’s International Coastal Cleanup time! Participate in a beach cleanup near you!
September: Go with a reusable metal razor instead of a plastic disposable one.
Have you taken any of these tips and run with them? Need some inspiration?
Each year, at least 8 million tonnes of plastics leak into the ocean – which is equivalent to dumping the contents of one garbage truck into the ocean every minute. If no action is taken, this is expected to increase to two per minute by 2030 and four per minute by 2050. Estimates suggest that plastic packaging represents the major share of this leakage. The best research currently available estimates that there are over 150 million tonnes of plastics in the ocean today. In a business-as-usual scenario, the ocean is expected to contain 1 tonne of plastic for every 3 tonnes of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish (by weight). http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf
MORE PLASTIC THAN FISH!
Not trying to be a downer here, but it is a very depressing thought. You have the power to help make sure this doesn’t happen. So let’s take RAPtober to change one habit and stick with it. Our Photo Challenge of the Month will give you the chance to show us what you are doing to RISE ABOVE PLASTICS.
And see you on October 30th for our 3rd Annual Butts, Brews and the UNDEAD Beach Cleanup and Bar Crawl.