We need a sea change more than ever before. You can make your drop in the ocean one that saves rather than destroys.
The beautiful blue and ever-changing mood of the ocean captivates us, whether we have grown up near it or enjoyed visiting it. She also sustains us. Half of the world’s oxygen is generated by the ocean. It drives climate, dictates weather, regulates temperature, and sequesters vast amounts of carbon dioxide. Coastal land supports more than 3.5 billion people while the underwater provides life to millions of plants, animals and bacteria.
The industrial revolution brought global transformation and has enabled the technology we have today. But this has also left its trace on the air, land, and sea since then, destroying what we need most to survive. We need to a huge collective mindset shift that puts our singular blue planet first.
The reality is that every choice we make eventually trickles into the ocean. As consumers, we must reduce the demand for products that harm the environment and instead support more sustainable solutions. Underwater pioneer Sylvia Earle said it best. “We need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.”
TURN THE PLASTIC TIDE
A world without plastic remains in the memories of our oldest living generation. It’s only been around for just over 100 years. On the small island of Mohéli in Comoros, the locals remember the first plastic bag arriving in 2007. Now, their beaches are littered with plastic debris, like a scene out of the documentary A Plastic Ocean. Places like this did not have the luxury of developing at a sustainable rate. Instead, they were thrown into the modern world without the necessary infrastructure to gather, sort, and process plastic waste.
In developing countries, beaches are the garbage dumps of the local areas. In the past, the ocean would take the food scraps, plant remains, and natural material waste into its depths. Now, the tides bring plastic rubbish onto these beaches from across the globe. The IUCN estimates that more than 8 million tons of plastics end up in the oceans every year. The Deep Sea Debris database even found a plastic bag at the bottom of the Mariana trench.
The scariest thing is that the visible trash is just a minute part of the problem. Invisible microplastics have been an alarming discovery. These are tiny pieces of petroleum-based materials that can come from beauty products, clothing, and larger pieces of plastic that have broken down. The invisibility of the problem makes our plastic crisis exponentially more troubling.
Microplastics attract biological growth and make their way into the stomachs of hungry fish. The Australian Marine Conservation Society has stated species including zooplankton, fish, and sea mammals have been found with plastics in their digestive systems. These hazardous microplastics work their way into the marine food chain, accumulating in number the further up the food chain you go.
Sea turtles become stuck on the ocean surface due to the methane produced by plastic in their stomachs, unable to dive down to escape predators or gather food. Albatross can no longer feed their young enough food without inadvertently giving them plastic debris. Dead whales have been found with over 40 kilograms of plastic in their stomachs. And people are not immune to this either. Plastic pieces have been found in tap water, bottled water, and seafood that people consume.
We are not just fighting a floating garbage island in the middle of the pacific that can be seen and scooped up. We are fighting the way society has evolved to consume.
What you can do:
- Quit plastic as much as you can, as soon as you can!
- Choose sustainable alternatives, such as bamboo toothbrushes, shampoo bars, second-hand items, and natural materials.
- Shop at bulk food stores and fill up those jars.
- Buy fresh fruit and vegetables in your own reusable bags.
- Avoid single-use wherever possible: reusable is far better.
CHEMICAL CLEAN UP
All rivers lead to the ocean. This is a beautiful sentiment, until you allow for the reality of chemical pollution. Everything from pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers, detergents, oils, and sewage all end up in the ocean, impacting its ecosystems. Nutrient-packed fertilisers from commercial agricultural operations travel from small streams to estuaries and bays and into the ocean. Especially during rainy seasons, catchments around farms overflow and massive amounts of concentrated and nutrient filled water spills into the natural environment, upsetting the delicate balance.
To manage this the CSIRO have been working on systems that collect visual and chemical data of water quality in Australia. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority now uses these techniques for systematic and cost-effective assessments. In the 2019 report, the water quality in the Great Barrier Reef catchment area received a score of ‘Very Poor’, showing that the water treatments put in place by farms are not protecting the reef. Overflowing rivers trigger algal blooms causing dead zones that are visible from space. These blooms stop other life forms from surviving in the water, altering the ecosystem.
What you can do:
- Opt for eco-friendly products.
- Choose natural cleaners over chemical cleaners in your home.
- Support organic and regenerative agricultural systems, or try growing some of your own food.
- Dispose of your waste responsibly, find out where you can properly dispose of fuel, batteries, electrical appliances, and chemicals.
- Support campaigns for improved water quality regimes.
SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD? NOPE
Sadly, the oceans are not the infinite resource we treat them as, instead they are a delicate and vital ecosystem. With a growing population, the demand for seafood has more than doubled in the past 50 years. This has pushed commercial fishing fleets to expand their territories and increase quotas. Currently, a third of commercial fish stocks are fished at unsustainable levels. The fish populations do not have enough time to reproduce to maintain a balanced ecosystem.
While overfishing puts a strain on the oceans, so too does targeting just few species. The focus on several carnivorous fish like salmon and tuna also threatens to unbalance ecosystems. These predatory fish are key in controlling the populations of their prey and are themselves a food source for larger species. In the North of America, Southern Resident Killer Whale populations are dwindling due to the sudden drops in food available to them, namely salmon.
The human demand for specific species of fish also means fisheries prioritise catching and keeping only those species. According to Oceana, bycatch amounts to 40 percent of the total world catch. Most of this bycatch, or unwanted fish, simply die in the nets. And despite recent sustainability efforts, a large chunk of the biomass of bycatch is still made up of turtles, whales, and sharks.
Some people have turned to fish farming as a sustainable answer. Unfortunately, these farms have their own set of problems. For example, diseases spread from the tightly packed sea pens to wild populations and farmed fish populations are fed on wild fish being caught and turned into fish meal. A recent report by the Changing Markets Foundation found that UK consumers eat a hidden 172 grams of wild fish for every 100 grams of farmed fish consumed.
What you can do:
- Decrease the demand for fish by eliminating seafood from your diet.
- Choose plant-based proteins, such as beans, tofu, lentils, nuts, quinoa – and the list goes on!
- Consume omega-3 fats by eating chia seeds, flaxseed, hemp seeds, walnuts and seaweed.
- Avoid fish oil as your omega-3 source; choose a plant-based vitamin supplement instead.
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You can make a difference! Align you actions to your beliefs and lead by example. Make daily choices to protect our big blue oceans. Support policies and campaigns that prioritise climate action and water management. Vote for the only planet we have.
