Plastic

Freedivers are lovely people. They are jolly, they are friendly and VERY committed. They will sign every petition to stop shark finning, write to nearby restaurants that sell shark-fin soup, sign and share everything to help sea turtles and openly go against keeping dolphins in captivity... but when it comes to deflating a plastic bottle and throwing it into a correct rubbish bin… my oh my. Plastic massacre all over the place.

This is just the Sunday morning plastic rubbish that I collected in and around the house where we stayed last weekend. Some I even pulled out of the bin.

I am one of those people who idealistically believe that we can live happily in this world and keep all our comforts while still protecting the environment, simply by changing the little things we do and keeping certain good habbits – like automatically throwing all plastic waste in one big bag and then taking it to a plastic rubbish bin.

The place where we stayed does not have access to drinking water, so everybody buys bottled water for the trip. This produces vast amount of plastic waste, very easily recycled, if only the owners of the place did it. So the best we can do is to collect it all up and take it home with us, throwing it out on our way home.

Hereby, I officially declare myself the recycling supervisor for the following freediving trips, as long as I shall freedive. I already have a volunteer to help me and we are thinking about having team t-shirts (any suggestions where to get some are welcome!!). I must remember to get larger rubbish bags next time though.

I am feeling much better now, knowing that this all will be recycled and used to make new stuff rather than sitting undecomposingly on a pile somewhere. The picture was taken in my own garden. Next time you throw something recyclable out, imagine it piling up in your own garden and how sad that would look. I find it helps :)