In 2018, let Fridays be Plastic Free! #plasticfreefriday
New Year’s resolutions come and go… but this year, let’s make it interesting and set our resolution to something that really matters. For the duration of 2018, for one day each week, we invite you to GO PLASTIC FREE!
There are so many ways to cut the unnecessary plastics from our lives, but like most NY resolutions.. the task is always a bit of a challenge at first. So to help you along, each Friday we’ll announce on our facebook page one simple way to reduce/eliminate your plastic use. There’ll be nothing too challenging; try each task for a day, a week, a month or even forever! #plasticfreefriday
Each and every year nearly 300 MILLION* tons of plastic is produced, half of which is for single use – the worst kind of plastic use there is. Of this amount, around 8 MILLION* tons finds its way into our oceans every year – that’s around 950 tons per person on earth!! Plastic affects every part of the ecosystem; from the harmful chemicals it seeps, to physical strangulation or ingestion… plastic in the ocean is not just hurting marine life, it’s killing it.
So ultimately, it serves us well to protect sea turtles; to lose a species that has been on earth for 100 million years, after just a few decades of human influence, could be considered nothing short of a tragedy.
Text: Lynn Lawrance
Just some of the 30 plastic bags found in the stomach of a rare goose-beaked whale in Norway in early 2017. The whale was repeatedly beaching itself and so ill it had to be euthanized; it's entire stomach cavity was filled with rubbish. Huffington Post. Photo: University of Bergen
If that’s not disturbing enough… we all know by now that most plastics never biodegrade (and those that do can take 100s, sometimes 1000 years!) – it just hangs about in the environment, breaking down into smaller and smaller microplastics. These microplastics then get ingested by pretty much everything in the ocean, and then slowly work their way up the food chain, and even onto our dinner plates! At this point, all the world’s major oceans contain microplastics. It’s food for thought (literally); next time you throw out the plastic bag of the fish or lobster from the market, later down the line you could ingest it again! ...yuck…
And it’s not just mass industry and factories producing this plastic waste, it’s us individuals just going about our everyday lives where throw away and hidden plastics permeate so many different touch points throughout an average day. From a cotton-buds to a takeaway coffee, food packaging and the plastic microfibers that shed from your clothes in the wash!
We CAN reduce our plastic consumption if we put our minds to it.. and in 2018 let's do it TOGETHER! Let's find ways to reduce plastic consumption in our day to day lives... all it takes is a little thinking and small changes here and there, which will collectively make an immense difference to the amount of plastic waste we create.
Please join us each week for #plasticfreefriday , and let's do what we can to improve the health of our oceans!
#plasticfreefriday
Image Sources: Defenders Blog, The Conversation, Huffington Post
*Plastic Oceans
Image Sources: Defenders Blog, The Conversation, Huffington Post
*Plastic Oceans