This month’s National Geographic cover really resonated for us. At first glance, it’s a melting iceberg– no wait. It’s a plastic bag, floating lifelessly in the ocean. The illusion works, and hits a nerve that we feel particularly strongly about. Humans have trashed much of the planet, especially our oceans, using them as a personal dumping ground for our manufactured plastic that will take thousands of years to degrade. We’ve known this for decades, but lately it’s gotten so bad that scientists estimate by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans. Let that sink in for a minute. It’s disgraceful and disgusting, and most tragic? Entirely preventable. Human greed, laziness, and a disconnect with our natural systems is the cause. For every good story you hear about people cleaning up beaches or inventing new eco-products, there’s a newfound coral reef that has been decimated. Or a new plastic gyre in the oceans larger than the state of Texas (!!). It’s alarming and depressing, but all we can do is move forward, hopefully in the right direction.
National Geographic’s cover story is part of an effort for them to help curb single use plastic. They’ve made a pledge to stop using plastic covers on their magazines, and have a number of simple yet crucial steps that we need to take to help this global problem as well. Below are a few of them, please take a look.
Your Part: skip plastic bags when shopping, bring your own reusable!
Your Part: Use a reusable container, recycle every time you have to use plastic!
Your Part: Protect the oceans, be aware of packaging waste, and pick up litter when you see it!
Your Part: Ditch the straw, you rarely need it! Tell your local bars and coffeeshops to ditch them too.
This is the most important Moss & Fog ever. I appreciate it even sit makes me sick. It reminds me of a video I saw several years ago by a promising graduate at Northern Michigan University, telling the story of the greed, laziness and shame of the plastic water bottle.
Wow, that’s ironic timing. Our fear is that convenience and complacency in developed countries is going to continue the trend of rampant waste. We live in Portland, Oregon that has bans on plastic bags at grocery stores, and many bars have started banning straws. But we realize this is a progressive city. The change needs to be widespread, not small efforts here and there. With regard to Asia, there are many troubling signs, but maybe some hope as well. India is so mired in pollution, citizens are starting to demand change. Thanks again for your comments!
Awesome article, I have spend all day today in a Plastic in Packaging conference, incredibly useful. Unfortunately some regulation on the matter is needed to trigger actions on that front and the USA is not very much up for regulation on that front I am afraid. In any case, Asia remains the biggest leakage in the system and that is a really big challenge.