Donnerstag, Mai 06, 2010

It is disgusting...

Yes, I have read about it. Yes, I care but sometimes not enough. This morning I saw a big plastic sheet swirling in the wind towards the shore from the works at the new building taking place right in my neighborhood. A 5 story monster, 4 in a row only 40 metres away from the shore. The EU regulation, FFH states clearly that within towns the distance should be 50m and outside towns it should be 100m. But this is not my theme today. Before going to work I walked to the beach which is a nice "green" and picked up the huge plastic sheet before the offshore wind would blow it into the Fjord. Nothing to rant about. But the eyes from the workforce, people looking and shaking their heads was a bit disturbing.

Being at work and going through my regular SA frontpage reading I came across a link and an article which reads: Plastics-in-our-Ocean I know you know this but it had been the bullet points which cannot be brought to attention often enough.

- Use durable fabric shopping bags;
- Whenever possible, choose bio-plastics, glass or paper;
- Return broken plastic goods to the manufacturer;
- Please do not litter.;
- Pick up a piece of plastic on your way home from sailing and place it in a recycling bin;
- Support environmentally responsible companies who are recycle plastic.
- Compost and recycle everything you can;
- Sweep your sidewalk rather than hosing it;
- Buy in bulk, avoiding smaller containers that will need to be disposed of;
- When appropriate, send letters to companies about over packaging or plastic packaging;
- Buy less and when you do make a purchase, avoid excessive packaging;
- Repair whatever goods you can before considering replacing them;
- If you live near a body of water, volunteer to help clean up the trash;
- Reuse flimsy plastic bags used for bulk purchases or choose paper instead.
- Cut the rings of plastic six-pack holders, which lowers the chances of entanglement with marine animals should that holder make it out to sea.

Please think about like me, going out to your local sailing club and have a little speech about this to the junior sailors. Make it clear that they do not want to capsize due to a plastic bag in the water. They shall care about the fish in the sea, about the environment. Sometimes I think about myself having developed a bad habit of picking up glass-and plastic bottles from the beach but I think the times they are changing. People will recognize it and in future more people will adopt the same habit. Hopefully. So please, keep the shores clean.

2 Kommentare:

Doug Culnane hat gesagt…

Totally agree with you.

Pat hat gesagt…

Stimmt! I wish that we could do a better job of making polluters pay.