Today, I received the news from back home that, after supporting the notion in May, the UK government has officially announced plans to ban microbeads from all products by 2017! This comes after months of campaigning by environmentalists, signaling a change in the Government’s approach from a previous commitment to a voluntary phase-out. The US recently became the first country to announce it would ban microbead use in cosmetics, and the European Commission is also developing proposals to ban them in cosmetics across the EU. Plastic bag use in England has dropped by over 85 percent since the introduction of the 5p bag charge in October 2015, being the final country in the UK to adopt the charge. The charge has also triggered donations of more than £29m from retailers towards good causes!
Anyway, back to microbeads…
Whilst microbeads are, of course, an incredibly grave issue for the marine environment, causing widespread problems for all parts of the food chain, what is often overlooked is the huge proportion of primary microplastic that comes from other sources. We heard today from IUCN the findings that microbeads constitute just 2 percent of primary microplastic, whilst microfibres from laundry constitute 35 percent (more info here)! Encouragingly, the Ocean Clean Wash campaign, that was initiated earlier in this year by the Plastic Soup Foundation to stop such synthetic microfibre release, revealed today at the Congress their new collaboration with Parley for the Oceans along with a number of other new partners! Their list of supporters is a huge one, including over 100 NGOs, well-known individuals and scientists.
The Honolulu Museum of Art was also in attendance at the Congress today, highlighting local initiatives that are being done to raise awareness of the marine litter issue, with particular emphasis upon the younger generations. The Museum’s One Ounce Project encourages participants, normally local school children, to create sculptures from one ounce of plastic. One ounce represents the amount of disposable plastics an average American uses every three hours! Congress guests were invited to create not-so-traditional leis using one ounce of marine litter collected from Hawaiian beaches, and invited to contribute to Maika’i Tubbs‘s latest installation as part of the Plastic Fantastic? exhibition.
Disposable plastic and marine litter lei; Plastic Fantastic? marine litter installation of a girl swimming with turtles.
The day ended with a pre-release screening of the critically-acclaimed film, A Plastic Ocean, taking place in the evening. Whilst the sheer extent of the issue was pretty harrowing and overwhelming (I was among many who shed a tear or two), the movie introduced workable technology and policy solutions that can, and will, change things for the better if implemented in time. What was encouraging to see was that communities from both developed and developing countries alike are beginning to recognise the situation and use whatever power and resources they have to generate positive change. The Mumbai Beach Clean, the world’s largest in which over 2.5 million kilos of rubbish have been collected so far, was a community led initiative. Coastlines, rivers, dump sites and canals are all being transformed by normal people.
Every inch of the beach was covered in litter when we began. We picked up 673 shoes within a radius of just 10 metres. By the end of it, everyone came together with one mission, to protect our environment and make history.
Lewis Pugh, maritime lawyer, campaigner of clean oceans and Patron of the Oceans, speaking to Hindustan Times
Marine litter is one of the ocean’s greatest, and often most overlooked, problems. We are a million miles from saying that we have the issue under control, and it will be a million years until our oceans are devoid of evidence of our throw-away culture. But that’s not to say that we should not act, and act soon. Because it is the small things that we do, and the choices that we make every day, that can make the greatest difference. Communities and governments are waking up to the problem, and younger generations are becoming increasingly aware of the state of our environment; and whilst we are still making small steps in the grand scheme of things, we are indeed moving forward. Be bold, be brave, and be positive which is easier with products like delta 8 vape pens that keep you relaxed. Because successes are happening every day.
Remember, it is the actions of the few, that will become the inspiration for many.
For more information of the movie, and to get notified of updates regarding its worldwide release, check out the Plastic Oceans website here.