Rise Above Plastics
Rise Above Plastics is a starting point for raising awareness of the problems that plastic brings to our oceans. Every bit of plastic ever produced still exists today and much of it ends up in the ocean – as evidenced by the infamous flotillas in the Pacific Northwest Gyre. RAP endeavors to spur you to action – at home, at the store, at City Hall.
Central to our campaign is an attempt to kill the demand for non-necessary plastics at the source, by encouraging public recognition of packaging. We aim to transcend (rise above!) the knee-jerk acceptance of single-use plastic bottles or ubiquitous plastic shopping bags (or other “do-dad” plastic junk created for new, introduced “needs”) when better robust, reusable and sustainable options exist.
Here are some numbers:
Join the Surfrider Foundation’s RAP campaign and make a difference on our essential marine environment. Check out the blog here.
For more information:
Ximena Waissbluth, [email protected]
Central to our campaign is an attempt to kill the demand for non-necessary plastics at the source, by encouraging public recognition of packaging. We aim to transcend (rise above!) the knee-jerk acceptance of single-use plastic bottles or ubiquitous plastic shopping bags (or other “do-dad” plastic junk created for new, introduced “needs”) when better robust, reusable and sustainable options exist.
Here are some numbers:
- Californians are issued 600 plastic bags EVERY SECOND. Most are used only one time and then discarded.
- The amount of petroleum required to produce single use water bottles, filter the water, transport and dispose of these UN-necessities could be represented with each bottle being quarter-filled with petroleum.
- There is currently 6 times more plastic than plankton in the Northwest Pacific Gyre.
- The U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually, requiring an estimated 12 million barrels of oil- a wasteful, reckless use of petroleum.
- Because of their flying, skimming and feeding habits, fulmars are the ‘canary in a coalmine’ version of marine birds. By the late 1990’s 98% of fulmar stomachs contained plastic, on average 31 pieces, in the North Sea.
- Each year an estimated 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals die as a result of eating or being strangled by plastic and other marine debris.
- There is a garbage patch roughly twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean; similar patches exist in every ocean.
- More and more data are showing links between pthalates, or plasticizers, and various problematic health effects, including abnormal reproductive development in males, asthma, endocrine disruption, cancer and premature births.
- The easy targets are the bottles and bags – we are attempting to find ways to shift the general public away from use of these items through awareness and education, legislation and other innovative methods to be developed by our members. This is where we hope to activate and energize you – bring on your ideas, initiatives and impetus!
Join the Surfrider Foundation’s RAP campaign and make a difference on our essential marine environment. Check out the blog here.
For more information:
Ximena Waissbluth, [email protected]