Green Living Magazine · page 18
Clean Beaches | Clean Oceans
16 greenliving July 2011 Save the Beaches award-winning documentary “Bag It” has been made about the proliferation of plastic bags in our world. This film highlights our excessive usage of plastics has a profound effect on the sea. According to the documentary, filmed and directed by award-winning director Suzan Beraza, the number of plastic bags used by the average American per year is between 300 and 500, which adds up to about 100 to 150 billion plastic bags used in the U. S.
alone last year. Michelle Hill, “Bag It” producer, said via email, “Every time I go to the beach, I like to look for shells. Even on seemingly ‘clean’ beaches, half of the pretty colored things I get excited about end up being bits of plastic. It is very disheartening, especially knowing all we know from having made this film.”
Kelly Ricaurte of the Ocean Conservancy says plastics are having a negative effect on the oceans. “Trash, especially plastics, are adding to the greenhouse gases, Traveling to the beach this summer? Remember to pack sunscreen and your eco-friendly sense. As you head out to catch rays, waves or to just dig your toes in the sand, take your green living habits with you.
From ordering certain types of fish to rethinking what you pack, these choices can have a positively green effect on your favorite beach. Thinking green about your seaside vacation means you need to think about the ocean – and keeping beaches beautiful is the starting point of keeping oceans healthy. The old camping/hiking rule “pack out what you pack in,” applies equally to the beach. A good day at the beach or lake means you’ll have (at a minimum) sunscreen and water, both of which come in plastic bottles.
Most of the time you’ll have more – snacks, sodas or juice, and maybe the ubiquitous plastic grocery bag to carry it all in. If you bring anything else in disposable containers (like bags), make sure to take the empty containers with you and recycle them. Plastic, Plastic, Everywhere Surprisingly, human trash, despite our country’s long-standing “no littering” laws and “Keep America Beautiful” campaigns, continues to find its way onto beaches nationwide. Trash is such a problem in waterways that millions of pounds of it are removed each year, and what doesn’t get picked up ends up in the ocean – shockingly, about 80 percent!
Volunteers from the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup (OCICC) have cleaned up billions of pounds of trash. According to the organization’s website, oceanconservancy. org, “Nearly nine million volunteers from 152 countries and locations have cleaned 145 million pounds of trash from the shores of lakes, streams, rivers and the ocean on just one day per year.” The OCICC has cleaned up and recorded every item of human trash it has found for the last 25 years.
This data produces a clear indication of what items create the most harmful impact on humans, wildlife and the ecosystem. The most frequently recorded item? Plastic. Plastic is everywhere and it’s suffocating our oceans and ocean wildlife.
The organization has found plastic bags, water bottles, lighters, even wedding cake toppers on our beaches. To start your eco-friendly trip to the beach, commit to bagging the plastic bag habit! Seriously. The easiest thing to do in terms of helping save beaches is to stop using plastic bags altogether.
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