Okay, That’s The Last Straw
By Mohammed Ahmed
Bleeding and distressed. A sea turtle having a straw pulled from its nostril.
I saw this in a video a few years ago, and I think about it often. The sea turtle was clearly not in good shape. It was breathing heavily and the people pulling the straw out were using tools and having to be firm to pull the straw out. Could this have been avoided? Most certainly yes.
It was caused by a man-made product and one that is most definitely not necessary.
The Plastic Pollution Coalition says that 33% of plastic is used a single time, and then discarded. Americans alone, discard 30 million tons of plastic a year and only 8% of this gets recycled. The rest ends up in landfills, littered across cities and beaches. Eventually, in our oceans.
Plastic Debris
Marine debris is growing all the time, and largely they are made up of plastic waste. Plasticoceans.org says that we as humans are dumping 8 tons of plastic waste into our oceans every year. This impacts on the marine life that keeps our ecosystems stable, and beautiful in its diversity.
The plastics take a long time to break down, a plastic straw, for example, takes 500 years to biodegrade. These plastics do often break down into smaller pieces yet our marine life ends up consuming them.
In 2017, a distressed and stranded whale had to be put down by wardens in Norway. They found 30 plastic bags in the stomach along with more plastic waste. This highlights the problem, yet it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Plastic is killing more than 100,000 sea turtles and birds a year from ingestion and entanglement. The plastic consumed by marine life is ending up in the human food chain. Smaller plastic particles are consumed and then find their way into the human diet through the fish that we consume. Many plastics contain chemicals that are linked with cancer in humans.
Refuse The Straw
We cannot make wholesale changes overnight, however, a campaign to reduce the use of straws has been gathering momentum for the last couple of years.
JD Wetherspoon decided in 2017 to no longer give plastic straws with their drinks. The chain of 900 pubs claimed that this move alone would save them from using approximately 70 million straws per year. Other chains have followed suit, and the backing of #refusethestraw by fashion powerhouse designer Vivienne Westwood resulted in millions of retweets.
Next time you go to a bar to hang out with your friends, or on a holiday relaxing on a beach, order your drink but refuse the straw.
It is going to be a collective effort. If we can begin with the simple things such as a straw, we can have a huge impact. One chain in the UK not serving straws is 70 million fewer straws being used alone! Imagine your impact. People are inspired by what they see in their daily life, be the role model in your circle!
By being advocates of #refusethestraw we as the 1 Million 1 Love community can add momentum to a global movement and in efforts to charge towards sustainability.
Tweet #refusethestraw Instagram #refusethestraw and live #refusethestraw.
Raising awareness will help us to take the first steps towards getting our oceans cleaner.
