Plastic beach on Midway Atoll

A few years ago I watched the fantastic film, Message in the Waves, which tells how Hawaiian islands, such as Midway Atoll, are finding our plastic waste is floating in their seas and being washed up on their beaches. These heartbreaking photos of dead albatross chicks revealing that they had consumed a staggering amount of plastic during their short lives.

How much plastic is in our oceans?

There are millions of tons of plastics present in our oceans, and these are constantly breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces which are scattered throughout the water column and present, in different densities, throughout all the worlds oceans. The video below shows a beach clean up on Midway Atoll. It's only a few minutes long and I think you'll be amazed by what our disposable lifestyles are doing to the oceans.

The only way we can stop this is to stop introducing more plastics into our environment. As the Midway Journey team say: “The good news is that we can do this. We can do this now. We need to start a social movement that spreads virally and creates a critical mass of concerned citizens who pledge to move away from our disposable habits, and who raise their voice to reject and reverse a throwaway culture that might be profitable, but whose consequences are intolerable.

Please share this post and help spread the message, thank you.

What are your tips for reducing plastic in your life?

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