growing up here in hawaii, i never thought the world had a rubbish problem. i thought it was just common sense to throw rubbish in trash cans. hawaii is very clean, and that’s how i thought the world was. it wasn’t until i went to japan till i noticed a lot of trash on the beaches. then when i went to indonesia, i was in shock. then after going to the philippines, i was in total shock. i traveled throughout asia and it blew my mind on the rubbish problem and how uneducated people are. still till this day, i will never forget the image of the staff throwing over the big rubbish bags into the ocean at night. total disbelief.
the report came out today that there are 8 million tons of plastic in our ocean. that is 16,000,000,000 pounds, or 7,257,477,920 kilograms of plastic floating in the sea right now.
30% of the plastic pollution comes from china. number 2 is indonesia, followed by number 3 philippines. i’ve never been to china before but if there is more plastics in the ocean than indonesia or philippines, that’s scary. we live in a plastic world and scientists say that it will be 10 times worst by 2020.
one major problem are plastic bags. they get caught to marine life and kill them. i’ve seen this with my own eyes many many times.
so what are we doing about it? well, i’m proud to say that hawaii has stepped up to ban plastic bags. yes, there will be no plastic bags starting july 1, 2015. that’s a huge step in the right direction. i just hope other countries will follow. then our ocean will be a cleaner place for the generations and generations to come.
