Long history of recycling.
I have been recycling for a long time but still bits of soft plastics were making their way into the trash, like almost everyone right?! When National Geographic featured a plastic bag floating in the ocean on the cover of their magazine in 2018, I realized that we need to start dealing with our plastic even more responsibly.
Making the commitment to change.
In 2019, the urge to make change became even stronger and I began taking action publicly, not just in our home. We had just finished rafting the Grand Canyon over the course of 16 days. This pristine wilderness had been virtually untouched and those who ventured there packed everything in and everything out. We left no trace. The trip was bare bones, we had our tents, members of our group slept in the open air on the rafts, we had our food and stoves -this is all we needed to survive. Most importantly, we started diligently separating our recyclables and hoped they'd be disposed of properly at the other end.
Commitment to educating myself.
When we returned to Canada, I dove into books on canyon preservation and those who to this day still want to dam the river in order to make large amounts of money selling hydro-electric power. I decided to make it my mission to start protecting our natural wonders, they sustain us and our life and health relies on them. So many people want to make a profit, but as a result our environment is suffering tremendously.
Soft Plastics.
I also started noticing all the soft plastic that was being thrown in the trash and not recycled at my friends homes, at the rec center, at the grocery store, literally everywhere -we really do consume and throw away A LOT of soft plastic.I soon began pulling soft plastics from my friends' trash, taking it home, cleaning it and popping it in my soft plastic recycling bin. There is no denying that our waterways and ocean are being choked out by plastic garbage. It has become my mission everyday to ensure we can divert plastic from our oceans, reduce our consumption of plastics, and instead use healthier sustainable plastics or plastic alternatives.
I believe we can turn this around.
We are now at a precipice with climate change creating extreme heat, winds, landslides, fires, and collapsed buildings. We need our ocean and clean waterways now more than ever. And, we are rapidly killing marine life at a scale never seen before in history. Our oceans have become a dumping ground and resemble a factory farm. The ocean is the largest carbon sink in the world; it pulls carbon from the atmosphere and stabilizes climate change. Our survival depends on a healthy ocean. We need 'sea change' when it comes to toxic plastic and I am committed to this change. Are you with us?