{"id":815,"date":"2016-01-20T11:22:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T11:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/uncategorized\/815\/new-years-plastic-resolution-5-simple-ways-to-help-the-ocean\/"},"modified":"2019-11-06T08:23:44","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:23:44","slug":"new-years-plastic-resolution-5-simple-ways-to-help-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/blogs\/815\/new-years-plastic-resolution-5-simple-ways-to-help-the-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year’s plastic resolution: 5 simple ways to help the ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

The New Year\u2019s storms have brought a lurid, unmissable reminder to UK beaches, with thousands of\u00a0bright pink detergent bottles<\/a>\u00a0being churned up by the sea. As waves of highly-visible plastic trash hit British beaches, it\u2019s a timely reminder of a much bigger problem: we are turning our oceans into plastic soup. It\u2019s been estimated recently that about\u00a0EIGHT MILLION TONNES\u00a0<\/a>of plastic ends up in the ocean each year.<\/p>\n

Plastic can be amazing. But when it\u2019s reduced to disposable, throwaway items, there\u2019s a big problem \u2013 there simply is no \u2018away\u2019 to throw it to. And plastic hangs around for a very, very long time. A lot of plastic rubbish finds its way into the ocean. Most of that you will never see, as it\u2019s broken down into tiny particles. But these \u2018microplastics\u2019 have been finding their way into ocean food chains for a long time, and now they are starting to turn up in the\u00a0fish you eat<\/a>, and in the\u00a0sea salt<\/a>\u00a0you sprinkle on your chips. Bigger bits of plastic meanwhile are eaten by\u00a0seabirds<\/a>, fish,\u00a0turtles<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0whales<\/a>, which die with stomachs full of plastic, assuming they\u2019ve not been unlucky enough to get ensnared and\u00a0killed by plastic<\/a>before then.<\/p>\n

There are some massive solutions needed, but the most important one is obviously for less plastic to be thrown away in the first place. \u00a0And that\u2019s something we can all help with. Every bit of plastic not used, not thrown away, or not left lying around is a good thing. The simple idea here is \u2018Reduce, Reuse, Recycle\u2019 \u2013 in that order. Sure we\u2019ve heard it hundreds of times, but it\u2019s never more true than it is with plastics.<\/p>\n

But since it\u2019s the season for New Year Resolutions, here\u2019s a quick list of 5 things you can do to help make the problem of plastic less drastic.<\/p>\n

1. SAY NO TO SINGLE USE PLASTICS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take your own\u00a0shopping bag<\/a>\u00a0with you. Use areusable drinks bottle<\/a>\u00a0or hot drinks mug. Pass on\u00a0plastic cutlery<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0unnecessary straws<\/a>. Avoid overpackaging.<\/p>\n

2. AVOID MICROBEADS<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s pretty unbelievable, but the same plastic used to make carrier bags is found as tiny \u2018microbeads<\/a>\u2019 in cosmetics. This ends up down the drain, and in the ocean. It\u2019s madness, and corporates and\u00a0governments<\/a>\u00a0at last seem to be waking up to that \u2013 but\u00a0check before you buy<\/a>!<\/p>\n

3. RECYCLE<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to tell you not to litter, because that\u2019s obvious \u2013 right? But if you do use plastic a) buy stuff that\u2019s already recycled, and b) recycle it afterwards. If your local area doesn\u2019t have\u00a0recycling facilities<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 then do feel free to go kick up a stink about it.<\/p>\n

4. DO A BEACH CLEAN<\/strong><\/p>\n

The fresh air is good for you. And every bit of plastic removed from the beach is a good thing, and might mean one less dead seabird or turtle too. You can\u00a0find out more here,<\/a>\u00a0or just do your own plastic pick up, even if you only have\u00a0a couple of minutes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. CONVINCE A FRIEND OR FAMILY MEMBER TO DO ALL OF THIS TOO<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a good chance you\u2019re already doing this stuff. But don\u2019t stop there. Less plastic and less waste is good news for all of us, and the planet, so spread the word!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New Year\u2019s storms have brought a lurid, unmissable reminder to UK beaches, with thousands of\u00a0bright pink detergent bottles\u00a0being churned up by the sea. As waves of highly-visible plastic trash hit British beaches, it\u2019s a timely reminder of a much bigger problem: we are turning our oceans into plastic soup. It\u2019s been estimated recently that about\u00a0EIGHT MILLION TONNES\u00a0of plastic ends up in the ocean each year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[30,28],"p4-page-type":[48],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspirethemovement","tag-plastics","tag-oceans","p4-page-type-blogs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8401,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions\/8401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}