How we can help stop the amount of plastic going into our oceans?
One of the biggest problems I see as I travel around this beautiful island is the amount of plastic waste that finds its way into the river sytem.
It’s an endemic problem. Local communities have for centuries been throwing their waste into waterways as a convenient way to carry away whatever they don’t need without ever having to think about it again.
But where the throw away items were previously, largely organic, they are now almost always plastic.
Advanced nations too, have been using river and drainage systems for centuries as an “out of sight, out of mind” solution to waste disposal but now the effects are becoming too large to ignore.
The Pacific ocean is now referred to as “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” or the “Pacific Garbage Vortex”.
Think about it. You put the Pacific Ocean in the centre of a map of the world and look at all the countries that have been placing waste into this ocean for millenia.
The America’s – north and south, including Canada, Russia, China, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Phillipines, Australia, New Zealand and all the Pacific Islands.
We need to change our behaviour now and of course we expect our governments to come up with a plan but here’s the thing. Its going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build alternative infrastructure and at this point no government is putting up their hands.
The problem is exacerbated in poorer nations such as Indonesia where there is often no municipal garbage collection in many areas and very little thought is given to providing rubbish bins at popular tourist attractions.
So as conscientious travellers we need to take matters into our own hands. That means if you’re heading to a popular tourist area such as a beach or waterfall always be prepared to carry out what you carry in.
In recent years a number of initiatives have been developed to encourage travellers to go the extra mile and collect a bag of litter at the locations they travel to.
Australian adventure traveller Jackson Groves wanted to do something about all the trash he saw when he was out hiking, visiting waterfalls or spending a day at the beach and so he decided to start collecting a bag of rubbish each time he went out on an adventure. It was his personal way of thanking mother nature for allowing him to enjoy her beautiful creations.
He started posting his idea on his Instagram page, not so much to brag about it but to encourage others to join him. Anyone who collects a bag of rubbish on their travels can now tag #adventurebag and @adventurebagcrew on their instagram feed and Jackson personally reposts to the @adventurebagcrew page. The page itself now has over 85,000 followers around the world which possibly means at least 85,000 bags of rubbish have now been removed from beaches, waterfalls and walking trails as a result of one man’s inspiration.
And while 85,000 bags of rubbish is certainly alot, here are two staggering statistics.
Firstly, we are presently producing around 300 million tonnes of plastic waste every year. That’s roughly equivalent to the weight of the entire human population. Which means that we would need to collect our own weight in plastic waste every year to keep on top of the problem.
Secondly, roughly 10 million tonnes of that plastic waste finds its way into the world’s oceans. Every year.
Since we’re not likely to see much of a change in our respective governments approach to waste management anytime soon, anything we can do as individuals to help reduce the amount of plastic waste ending up in our waterways is a small but positive step in the right direction.