Active Lifestyle

This past week I was exposed to the photography work of Chris Jordan. He recently returned from an expedition to Midway Island to photograph a shocking scene of what is happening because of human plastic consumption.

This fate is not exclusive to Albatrosses, all marine life living near the Pacific Gyre are affected by this gruesome fate. From the smallest fish that consumes plastic by mistake, to the larger fish who consume them and the rest of us down the food chain are all being affected by this.

The problem is certainly a big one, but there are small steps we can all do to get started solving it.

1) Minimize your use of plastic whenever possible and when you have no alternative but to use plastic, be sure you recycle it properly so that it doesn’t end up in the landfill or the ocean.

2) Check out the 5Gyres.org, a new project from Anna Cummins (local LA resident) of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and the JUNK Raft dedicated to researching and communicating plastic pollution in the worlds oceans (we’ve got a great YDT video with Anna coming up soon).

3) Stop using plastic water bottles. There is no need for one-time use plastic bottles. Not only is the cost of buying bottled water expensive, the environmental cost is astronomical. To help you get started, YDT has partnered with local company EcoUsable to help get the word out about their stainless steel filtered water bottles and get people to ditch the plastic.

Not only are the EcoUsable bottles stainless steel (which means that they won’t leach chemicals into your water), these bottles also come with a built in filtration system from Seychelle that allows you to grab water directly from the tap and convert it into safe, clean drinking water instantly filtering out 99.9% of containments.

From now until the end of month, YDT will be giving away four EcoUsable water bottles to new subscribers who sign up for YDT newsletter and current subscribers who invite friends.

To learn more about the bottles checkout www.ecousable.com

Images via Chris Jordan, EcoUsable and the BBC

Tags: 5 Gyres.org, Algalita, Anna Cummins, chris jordan, environmental cost of plastic bottles, pacific garbage patch, Pacific Gyre, Plastic Pollution, Plastic Water Bottles