Cool Runnings Special Report: Plastic

Cool Runnings is currently in the Berry Islands, a small, remote group of islands in the Bahamas.  On the one end of the string of islands is Great Harbor Cay, where there is a marina and a small settlement.  On the other end, on Chub Cay, there is another marina, where many of the big sports fishing boats go when they come over from the USA to go Bonefish fishing in the Bahamas.  In between, there's a whole lot of nothing...which is what we love.  The little islands (Cays), are uninhabited, wild and solitary.

A few days ago, we anchored off Little Harbor Cay, about half way between Great Harbor Cay and Chub Cay.  We had gone exploring on our dinghy and found a path that led to the beach on the ocean side of the small island.  At first sight, it was beautiful:  rugged, wild, unspoiled.  But as we looked closer, and walked down onto the beach, we saw the reality.  Plastic everywhere!  It was not the first time we had seen it, but somehow, it just suddenly really made an impact on the kids. 

Plastic Beach:  From afar it looks beautiful, but close up, the pollution is heart breaking

We decided that the following day, the school assignment would be to write a report on what they had seen, how it made them feel, and what could be done about it.  I am pasting both Ben and Gaby's unedited reports below.  We encourage you to read them, and share them, especially with kids.  The problem seems overwhelming, and often you feel that you, as one person, can't possibly make a difference.  But we strongly believe that if each and every person just makes an effort, the effect will snowball, and the impact will be great!  I have lots to say on this subject, but this post is about how our children reacted to it, and they are the future, so what they think and how they react, is critical. 

Plastic Oceans

By Benjamin Hibberd

Yesterday I walked along the sea shore, looking at the beauty of the ocean… and the heaps of plastic covering its shores.  We are in the Berry Islands, a small group of islands in the Bahamas, and yesterday we took a walk to the ocean side of an island that we were anchored off of.  The amount of plastic on the shore was staggering.  I saw tires, sunscreen bottles, fishing nets, oil containers, light bulbs, and hundreds and hundreds of bits and pieces of broken down plastics.  It was saddening to see such a beautiful coastline polluted.

            This is not the first place we have seen it.  Having almost completed our circumnavigation, we have been to many different places and have sadly seen it almost everywhere.  The worst of it being Indonesia.  Here, rivers were used as trash cans, and the people didn’t even think twice about littering!  The streets and gutters were brimming with trash, and the beautiful landscape was so polluted that the entire place looked like a trash heap.  And for the rest of our time in the Indian Ocean we saw evidence of this problem.  In fact, we saw it in every ocean we crossed:  the Pacfic, the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans.  Even in Chagos (in the Indian Ocean), one of the most remote places on earth, and completely uninhabited, we found rubber flip-flops, plastic bottles, and fishing buoys and nets, on the otherwise pristine beaches.  We picked up what we could and had bonfires to burn it.

            Seeing all of this pollution saddens me.  I think about the effect it has on our environment.  We have seen so many turtles on our travels and love watching them, but since some turtles’ main diet is jellyfish, many of them mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and eat them.  Over time plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces until it becomes plankton sized micro-plastic.  I wonder what effect this has on whales, who get their food by filtering through the water.  Seabirds are also effected by plastic. They either eat fish who have ingested plastic in their bloodstream, or mistake a piece of plastic for a fish.  They can get tangled in fishing line and plastic six-pack rings. When we catch fish we wonder how much plastic we are in fact eating!

            What can we do about this terrible substance known as plastic?  For starters we can follow the four R’s.  You’re probably familiar with the three R’s, “reduce, reuse, recycle” but there is another part that is key to this cycle.  REFUSE!  Refuse plastic straws, refuse to buy plastic bottles or containers, and refuse the store’s plastic bags…bring your own reusable bag to the store!  Use or buy glass when possible! Spread the word!  Tell your friends and family how they can help reduce plastic usage.  The more people are educated on the problem, the more chance we have of stopping this once and for all!  Don’t feel like you can’t make a difference! Together we can and will make a difference!  We must make a difference, or we face looking out onto plastic oceans…         

Pieces of plastic make for a colorful, but saddening mosaic in the dried seaweed on the beach

This huge fishing net (top) stretched all the way to where Dave and Ben are standing (they are holding up the end of it).  You can only imagine the turtles, birds and fish that can get caught in this when it is floating freely in the ocean.  Bottom left:  the plastic breaks down into tiny pieces, making clean up difficult, and ingestion by sea animals easy.  We found a big part of the problem was from fishing paraphernalia:  fishing nets, especially the nylon type, buoys and rope

Plastic Planet

                                                                BY Gaby Hibberd

  Plastic is a huge problem. Sailing around the world for 2 ½ years has truly opened my eyes to how much trash is really out there and getting thrown, blown, and washed in the ocean every second. I am writing this because I want people to be aware of this problem that we all face, and that we can only fix together.

How does it get there?

  Small pieces of trash tossed into the street are often washed down storm drains during rain storms, which deposits the water – and the trash – into the sea. Rivers and other waterways can also wash into our bays and oceans. Then with the help of ocean currents, that trash gets traveled around the ocean and deposited somewhere else, with animals such as birds and fish eating some of it along the way. L

The contents of a seabird’s stomach: plastic.

The real awakening…

  Ever since I was little I was aware of garbage and pollution. But this trip around the world has opened my eyes to the frightening truth. Indonesia was particularly scary of how much plastic was produced by the 266,794,980 people living there. In one town called Wera, we were walking on a bridge and looked down to see the river below us. But there was no water at all. It was a river completely filled with hundreds of bags of trash. It seems that that “river” was where the town dumped its trash. When it rained, all the plastic would get washed out into the sea and “disappear” from the town so they didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

Indonesian Beaches… L

  

We once went to a beautiful bay on the coast of Flores in Indonesia. We swam in the beautiful water and watched some little boys paddle around on their wooden boats. They came by our boat and said hello, and then my mom gave them each a lollipop. They paddled away saying thank you and eating their lollipops. I was devastated when I saw them throw their lollipop wrappers in the water. I tried to swim after them and tell them not to do that, but they spoke very little English and didn’t understand. It just shows that you have to educate people for them to know not to create bad habits like what I had just experienced. I have countless stories of experiences like that, but it would get boring telling them all.

Single-use-plastics

  There are many things you can do to stop the use of plastic. For example, refuse that straw in your drink, or skip that little tasting spoon on your ice-cream cone, because you will end up throwing these all away after using it once. These are called single-use-plastics.

  Instead of buying plastic one-time-use water bottles, use a reusable metal one. The water that comes from a plastic water bottle is the same water that comes from your tap. Also, try and by foods with less packaging on them when you go grocery shopping.

Microplastics & microbeads

  Plastic is everywhere. A lot of it ends up in the ocean. Most plastics in the ocean break up into very small particles. These small plastic bits are called “microplastics.” Other plastics are intentionally designed to be small. They’re called microbeads and they are used in many health and beauty products. They pass unchanged through waterways into the ocean. Aquatic life and birds can mistake microplastics for food.  Avoid microbeads in health and beauty products, because when you wash it down the drain, it leads to the ocean. Fish eat the microbeads, and then we eat the fish. Fish are becoming toxic, because they are eating these plastics, and if we don’t do something about it, by 2050 people who regularly eat seafood will have plastic in their blood streams…

A baby turtle mistaking plastic for food

The Facts

~ There are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean L

~ By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean if we don’t do something about it

~ The equivalent of one garbage truck full of trash is getting dumped in the ocean every minute

~ 2.5 billion Disposable cups are thrown away in the UK annually

~ 1 billion toothbrushes are thrown away in the USA – that is enough to span the globe x4

~ 500 million plastic straws are used daily in the USA

~ Of the 260 million tons of plastic the world produces each year, about 10% ends up in the ocean

~ Over 100,000 marine mammals and 1,000,000 seabirds die each year from ingestion or entanglement in plastic litter

~ A plastic bottle will last for more than 450 years if left on a bench

~ Over the last 10 years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century

~ 50% of the plastic we use, we use just once and throw away

~ China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam are spewing out as much as 60% of the plastic waste that enters the world’s seas

~ Enough plastic is thrown away each year to circle the Earth 4 times

~ Every piece of plastic ever made is still around today

What you can do to help J

Bring your own shopping bag.

Use a reusable water bottle instead of multiple plastic ones.

Pack your picnics in reusable containers.

Say NO to plastic straws and disposable cutlery.

Do not use products with microbeads found in face wash, soaps, and toothpaste.

Use biodegradable sunscreen that does not contain oxybenzone – a chemical that kills coral.

Buy products with less packaging on them.

Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Spread the world to your friends and family!

Remember we can only conquer the problem together. Let’s not let our beautiful Blue Planet become our Plastic Planet! J