In 2016 I took a trip to Belize to hang out in tropical paradise with my sister as is our annual tradition. She loves snorkeling and I love both snorkeling and SCUBA diving and we love each other so it’s one of my favorite traditions.
If you’ve ever been to Ambergris Caye you know that while it’s developed, there are long swaths of unoccupied beachfront. Where there are condos or resorts the beaches are raked daily or several times a day, while the unoccupied beaches are left untouched.
One day we took a long walk along the beach and came upon this mess. Mind you, these are not pics from a website dedicated to saving the earth - I took these with my iPhone
To say I was both stunned and disgusted is an understatement. These piles of detritus were full of plastic things - bottles, Crocs, flip flops, toothbrushes, storage containers, plastic bags, etc.
This is when I realized that our chronic habit of employing single use plastics (yogurt containers, water bottles, zip lock bags, milk bottles, various cheeses, bread bags, etc.), is more problematic than I had ever considered before and it sent me on a personal journey to do my part to use less. Individually it might not make much of a difference but at scale I believe it can.
Side story:
One of the things I saw in these puddles of trash were these plastic bags that were sealed on all sides - about 4” x 5”. Whoa, I thought - is the drug smuggling situation so severe that this many bags are washed up on the shore? Why was illicit drug smuggling the first thing to cross my mind? Because in some Caribbean islands they talk about ‘square groupers’ which is a euphemism for a block of weed or some other drug that has washed up on shore. If you see one, just walk away!
The next day I went on what I like to think of as ‘The SCUBA trip that almost killed me’. The water was very rough and most operators were not taking people out but I found one who would (Go me!). The ride out to the dive site was straight out of The Perfect Storm with the boat being tossed around by the waves like a loose croc floating in high surf. The dive itself was amazing but the above water experience was something I hope never to repeat.
Getting back to my plastic trash - once on board the boat the dive master told us there was plenty of drinking water in the cooler on the deck. When I got thirsty I opened the cooler only to find it filled with sealed plastic bags full of water! Yes, readers, those little sealed bags were water bags, not drug bags. I’m sure they are very cheap if they are even available any more but I sincerely hope they are not. I thought about traveling the Caribbean convincing dive shops to provide a reusable drinking bottle to all new customers and I still think about it sometimes. I’m happy to say, that many do and those that don’t often tell you to bring your own. Progress!
Moving Forward -
I’m curious about many things pertaining to plastic pollution and to climate change. I want to research and write about:
The scale of the single use plastics problem and the things we can do as individuals to address it
Fast fashion
Plastic recycling (is it happening, does it work, is it a ruse by the petroleum industry?)
Microplastics
What it means when a company claims to use recycled plastic, harvested from the ocean (what does that supply chain look like? Is that really what’s happening, what does the industry for these reclaimed plastics look like?)
What big companies are doing - are they really helping or are they green washing for marketing purposes?
ESG Investing (Environment, Social, Government) and how Wall Street is responding to that idea. Can organizations like BlackRock make a difference? The Blackrock story is very interesting - stay tuned.
The things YOU care about. Please tell me in the comments if there is something you’d like to learn about or better understand.
In addition to exploring new topics, I will provide information on products and habits I’ve adopted that I hope will help. I’m sure more stuff will come up as I embark on this journey.
I was skeptical of doing this when I thought it up but the news is full of stories about climate change, pollution and other environmental concerns. It’s clearly a topic on people’s minds so I will keep producing my TL:DR letter and hoping it’s helpful. I’ve plastered this letter with ‘share’ buttons because the more people we can educate, the better.