Oceans of Plastic

A few days ago, I heard a man complaining that one of our supermarkets, which now charges for plastic bags and sells and encourages the use of re-usable bags, was simply doing it to make more money. “A cash grab,” he called it. He bought the plastic bags. Then we went out on our boat, and among the things we saw were a couple of plastic bags and a drink can or two floating by. It made me remember the white-sand beach in the Bahamas - where the sand was covered with plastic debris, including bottles, buoys, ropes, nets, flip-flops, and bits and pieces of bags.

There is a disconnect between what some people think they know and what we see and have seen on the water and as we travel. I’ve mentioned before the many different kinds of debris and garbage we have seen floating in the water. Much of it is well away from land. It seems that there are still some people who believe that if it’s out of their sight, it doesn’t exist; and if something they do causes harm they can't see, they themselves have done no harm.

And yet everyone’s actions have consequences even if they themselves do not directly see them. Fortunately this includes the actions of those who work hard to reduce pollution. Which means that each action we take to reduce the harm we cause has an impact. Even if we can’t see it immediately.

And even if some people will not see the results of their littering, that does not mean that it has gone unnoticed or unrecorded. Here are some of the consequences of allowing plastic to float in our oceans:




And that's why we try to keep our planet clean.