Public awareness around the huge volume of plastic waste being dumped into our oceans (8 million pieces every day) is increasing, and it seemed the message was beginning to sink in, as people now habitually carry reusable bags for shopping, make greater efforts to recycle their plastic waste, and reduce their consumption of single-use plastics. 

And then the pandemic happened. 

Suddenly, our demand for plastic increased exponentially, as billions of people across the globe were instructed to wear masks, and sometimes gloves, in order to protect themselves from the virus.

According to a new report, humans are globally using and disposing of an estimated 129 billion face masks and 65 billion plastic gloves every single month that we deal with COVID-19.

That’s almost 200 BILLION plastic items every month in PPE – completely aside from our regular plastic waste.

Recent research has shown that Brits alone are sending 1.6 bilion non-biodegradable masks to landfill every month. And coronavirus – and consequently the requirement to wear face masks – is showing no sign of letting up anytime soon. Recent studies have found cotton masks to be largely ineffective, driving demand for plastic PPE even higher. 

Unsurprisingly, the impact of this huge need for face coverings can already be seen in our oceans, where discarded masks (mostly made from plastics that can take decades to hundreds of years to break down) can be seen floating on the surface like jellyfish and littering shorelines around the world. 

And if you thought the pandemic was stressful for us humans, spare a thought for the marine creatures desperately attempting to survive in a sea of our filthy swirling waste. 

If we consider a virus with a 0.01% fatality rate (deaths vs world’s population) to be a global emergency, think of the 100 million sea creatures killed each year by our discarded plastic .

So far COVID-19 has claimed the lives of around 1.2m people worldwide (in a global population of 7.8 billion which, whilst greatly concerning, is a drop in the ocean compared to the number of animals whose deaths we’ve caused. And that’s just the marine deaths that have been recorded – the true figure will be far higher. (If you think the recording of coronavirus deaths is inaccurate, you can only guess at the inaccuracy of the reporting of animal deaths, which gains far fewer headlines.)

One particular animal which has been affected by these vast quantities of plastic polluting our oceans is the turtle. Six out of seven species of marine turtle are listed as critically endangered, with estimates ranging from only 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 10,000 hatchlings reaching sexual maturity. They are constantly ingesting the plastic that is mixed with their dietary items throughout their lives, which claims the life of many turtles, particularly juveniles whose digestive tracts are smaller. 

Of those that do make it to adulthood, they have to physically battle through the litter in the sea and on the beach to lay their eggs. Another obstacle for the turtles to negotiate is sargassum, a type of seaweed also referred to as the floating rainforest. Out in the open seas this micro-algae provides a haven for hundreds of species, but when washed up on beaches it forms a deadly tangled mass, creating walls several metres high for the turtles to navigate. 

The sun beats down on this lethal combination of micro-plastics and sargassum. These small pieces of plastic less than 5mm in length leach toxic chemicals into the turtles’ nests, and the sargassum that gets pushed over the nests by waves then contaminates the environment further, altering thermal conditions and subsequently the sex of the hatchlings: lower nest temperatures produce more males, higher temperatures more females. The sargassum is thought to have a cooling effect, resulting in more male hatchlings and less females, potentially leading to a population scale crisis and subsequent extinction risk. 

Assuming the hatchlings withstand this fraught start in life and attempt to make it back the ocean, they are then faced with crossing these huge barriers of steaming, stinking toxic debris whilst being baked by the boiling sun and exposed to predators such as vultures and other birds waiting to pluck them from the beach as easy prey. 

And we thought us humans had problems! 

Wearing a (reusable!) mask and washing our hands seems like a small ask in our fight against the virus (which is a sickness of our own making, caused by humans, after all) compared with the daily battles being fought by these animals through no fault of their own (again, the blame lies squarely with humankind). 

So what can we do about it? Well, seeing as we created this issue for our oceans, surely it’s down to us to fix it? Two people who are passionate about doing their bit to help these desperate creatures are the appropriately named Angela Warrior and Lisa Good, a philanthropic pair of eco-warriors fighting for the future of our oceans. 

Angela is a marine biologist living in Mexico, where she witnesses first hand the plight of these amazing creatures. On the Mexico Caribbean there is a beautiful marine reserve named Sian Ka’an, whose name means “a place where heaven begins.” Every night, May to November, hundreds of female nesting turtles crawl up the beach to lay their eggs. Sadly, due to the conditions described above, Sian Ka’an is no longer heavenly, as it is covered in mountains of plastic debris and marine algae. Angela is on a mission to fix this, along with her good friend Lisa, founder of Pure Sea, a charity to raise awareness and funds for reducing the plastic in our oceans.

Angela’s plan is to make thrice-weekly beach cleans representing Pure Sea in collaboration with Mar Amor, a local non-profit organisation, to ensure there is enough space for females to nest, and build hatcheries along the beach to protect the nests from being smothered in sargassum.

She will also set up a turtle “camp” with volunteers patrolling the beach to collect Hawksbill turtle eggs (since this species is critically endangered), place them in the hatcheries, and clear channels on the beach for the hatchlings to make their way to the ocean free of obstruction.

For other species, such as green and Loggerhead turtles, she will leave the nests in-situ (leaving the eggs where they were laid), but will apply wire mesh around the nests to protect them from predators; cleaning them regularly to remove accumulated rubbish and sargassum.

Her final part of this robust 5-point plan is to bring children from local schools to assist with the cleans and educate them about marine pollution and how it relates to the wellbeing of our oceans and marine life. 

Lisa, meanwhile, has been hosting regular beach cleans and fundraisers here in the UK since launching Pure Sea in 2018, and continues to do so (virus-permitting!), as well promoting the use of reusable masks (you can contact Lisa here to order your Pure Sea mask and pay/donate here ), and visiting local schools as part of her Little Ripples project. 

Together, they make a formidable team. 

They are raising funds via a sponsored skydive, which is planned for April 2021 (despite Angela’s fear of heights!). Their plan is to dress as turtles for a tandem jump, shouting “Cowabungaaaaaaa!” as they throw themselves from the aircraft at 12,000ft. Now I’m sure that alone will have people lining up to pay good money to see. 

If you have been moved by the plight of these precious turtles and inspired by this pair of middle-aged mutant ninja turtle-warriors, please click the link below to sponsor their skydive and contribute to this very worthy campaign. 

That would be turtley awesome, dudes! 

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/angela-warrior-1

Sam x

Fancy reading my back-story before you go any further? You can find my other blogs at:

www.costaricachica1.blogspot.com

www.ifyouboozeyoulose.blogspot.com
www.samgoessolo.blogspot.com
www.mummymission.blogspot.com
www.worldwidewalsh.blogspot.com

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Saving the oceans from plastic has become Lisa’s passion

I’ve written this blog in support of Lisa Good’s Pure Sea campaign. To find out more, connect with Lisa (pictured left) via Facebook here or on her Pure Sea page here. Read on to find out about the terrifying environmental impact of our voracious plastic consumption, and how you can help Lisa on her mission… 

When you see something shocking, you can’t simply ‘un-see’ it (as much as you’d like to) – it swirls in your mind, vying for attention as your brain tries to process it; make sense of what your eyes have just witnessed.

This is what happened when those disturbing images of plastic-wrapped wildlife and country-sized floating islands of plastic were first presented to us, the public, by the media: we wanted to unsee it. Or should I say ‘un-sea’ it. We didn’t want to believe it. It took a moment to sink in…and then we wanted to get it out of our oceans, pronto. We, humankind, put it in the sea, and now we need to ‘un-sea’ it. We have to get it out.

Plastic, derived from the Greek word ‘plastikos’ meaning ‘capable of being molded or shaped’, was first invented in the 1860s by Alexander Parkes, who invented ‘Parkesine’ from the cellulose found in the cell walls of plants. This was later adapted by two Americans, the Hyatt Brothers, who added camphor to improve malleability and renamed the material ‘celluloid’, used widely in the film industry.

A further big breakthrough came in 1907 when Belgian-born American Leo Baekeland created Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic. This led to the invention of a flood of synthetic materials in the 1930s, such as polystyrene, polyester, and nylon. Since then, for almost 90 years, humans have been in love with plastics.

That love affair is coming to an end.

Currently, over five trillion pieces of plastic litter our oceans; five huge circular currents or ‘gyres’ swirl in the sea, churning this waste round and round like a giant toxic soup. One of these gyres labelled the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch,’ is three times the size of France. It covers an area of 1.6 million square kilometers and comprises at least 1.8 trillion pieces of litter. The first-ever United Nations Ocean Conference in 2017 warned that if we don’t act now, the sea will contain more plastic than fish by 2050. It’s a sobering thought.

So if we’ve been using plastic for 90 years, why is it only now that everyone is starting to sit up and take notice?

For the first 30 years or so, plastic use was not deemed to be excessive. It was a modern-day convenience, loved by humankind as a life-enhancing innovation. We didn’t want to think about the end result. It was out of sight, out of mind.

Later, in 1970, a Norweigan explorer named Thor Heyerdahl discovered swathes of plastic in the mid-Atlantic and reported it to the UN. With advancing production methods and declining costs, plastic consumption had exploded, yet the subsequent pollution wasn’t deemed to be a pressing issue. Yet.

In 1997, sailor Charles Moore came across a vast micro-plastic rubbish dump in the Pacific Gyre. However, it took another two decades for the UN to hold a conference, in 2017, calling for a ban on plastic sea pollution. (It’s about time: we’re dumping a lorry-load of plastic into the ocean every minute.)

In the meantime, our plastic obsession is destroying our sea life. Over 100,000 marine creatures and 100 million birds are killed each year as a direct result of plastic debris in the ocean – either by becoming trapped in it or eating it. 50% of sea turtles have plastic in their guts, and 90% of seabirds (often over 200 individual pieces).

Suddenly, the world is listening, and the operation to clear up our oceans has finally begun in earnest.

Now, myriad organisations have been set up with the aim of removing plastic from our seas, educating people about the impact of littering our planet, and changing lax attitudes towards single-use plastic. One such company is Plastic Oceans, who is on a mission to change the world’s attitude towards plastic within a generation. 

They say: “The problem of plastic pollution is growing exponentially every year; we are producing more than 300 million tons of plastic, half of this designed for single use, and each year around 8 million tons of it ends up in our oceans. We can solve this problem and we can do it by educating and engaging everyone in a conversation to rethink plastic. Plastic Oceans is working to change the way we deal with plastic waste by challenging society’s perception that this indestructible substance can be treated as ‘disposable’”.

One passionate supporter of Plastic Oceans is businesswoman and good friend of mine, Lisa Good. To pledge her dedication and raise funds and awareness for the cause, Lisa will be doing a skydive. On 7th September, she’s jumping out of a plane at 15000ft, the highest jump a new jumper can do, as she wants to experience the longest free-fall possible. Having done a skydive myself (at 12k ft) I can attest to the courage such a jump will require – it’s certainly not for the faint-hearted!

When quizzed on her decision to raise money in this fashion, Lisa says: “I’m supporting plastic oceans foundation as I’m passionate about cleaning the ocean and protecting marine life. Plastic Oceans is raising awareness amongst the younger generation, finding alternatives to plastic and funding towards the incredible plastic waste dredgers being developed.

I’d really love everyone to support me on my mission by purchasing a Puritii bottle. All sales of my bottles in the period preceding my jump will be non-profit to me as I’ll donate all commission to Plastic oceans. My Puritii bottle is the most unique on the market; no other bottle filters every contaminant.

Water in London is recycled up to seven times and carries harmful chemicals, pharmaceuticals, fluoride, ammonia and chlorine that cannot be filtered. It also contains bacteria that can cause stomach upsets, poisonous algae that encourage cancer cells to breed and contributes to skin ageing.

The triple layer filter system provides healthy water, whilst saving you heaps of money too! The real beauty of this bottle is that each filter could potentially stop 455 plastic bottles (that could be up to 350,000 bottles in your lifetime) from damaging our environment and contaminating our oceans; we must start taking care of our planet. With a Puritii filter bottle, you don’t ever need to buy plastic bottled water again.

This incredible bottle can be filled at any water source, including muddy ponds, as it filters water to 99.99% pure!

These bottles are so incredible that one of our team has taken a £15k supply of them to 3 villages in Africa, the result being they are now able to provide fresh water from filthy water holes. It’s really an incredible device that purifies your body and helps save our oceans.”

Whilst researching this article, I’m suddenly hyper-aware of the sheer volume of plastic in my own home: opening the fridge reveals fruit and veg wrapped needlessly in excess plastic. Cleaning products, beauty products….we’re surrounded by the stuff. During a trip to Thailand earlier this year I was horrified to see the ocean surrounding the idyllic island of Phi Phi completely clogged with plastic litter.

I wonder, what did we use before the plastic boom?

As a child of the Seventies, I recall fruit, vegetables, and sweets being displayed loose, to be hand-selected then sold by weight in brown paper bags. Fish and chips were wrapped in greaseproof paper, not polystyrene trays. We would take our soft drink bottles back to the corner shop for reuse, a small refundable deposit on offer by way of incentive. People shopped locally and bought fresh, visiting the greengrocer and the butcher, rather than ordering online and having everything delivered wrapped in plastic. The milkman left our milk on the doorstep each morning – in glass bottles, not plastic. Empties were left on the doorstep for collection. Casting my mind back to a bygone era evokes wistfulness, a hankering for simpler times. Is ‘progress’ actually that? I wonder.

So, what can we do? Sign this petition by Friends of the Earth to put pressure on our government to act. As well as rejecting single-use plastic, you can help save our oceans by recycling at home and on the go (and encouraging others to do so), carrying a reusable cloth shopping bag (oh how we grumbled about the introduction of the 5p plastic carrier bag!), and participating in litter collections. Avoid purchasing anything wrapped in plastic wherever possible – choose loose fruit and veg. Don’t buy plastic-bottled water on the go, carry your reusable filter bottle. Use it at home also, instead of drinking polluted tap water.

As Lisa points out, plastic left floating in the sea absorbs highly toxic chemicals which disrupt our endocrine system and have serious effects, including cancer-causing cell mutations in humans.

Also, if you’re a seafood lover, the chances are you’re consuming up to 11000 tiny fragments of microplastics each year. Recent studies have found plastics in the stomachs of 75% of deepwater fish. It’s enough to put you off your fish supper.

Like a message in a (glass!) bottle that’s slowly circumnavigating the globe, bobbing along on a filthy tide, the memo is finally being read. Can we fix our global plastic problem and clean up our oceans? If we all work together on a global scale, anything’s possible – although scientists estimate it will take at least 450 years. Time will tell; our success will be measured by our successors.

I guess they’ll have to sea it to believe it.

To support Lisa and raise money towards this incredibly worthy cause, Plastic Oceans, check out her Pure Sea Facebook page. You can also contact her on 07720 854902 to purchase your Puritii bottle or check out Lisa’s Just Giving page.

A shorter version of this article has also appeared in HuffPost UK Lifestyle here.

Sam x

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