Ocean of....plastics?

Hello all. We hope you took some extra steps in recycling on your way to reading this! Lets dive a bit deeper into our oceans towards our next topic, our plastic situation.

If you haven't noticed, plastic use has grown exponentially in our daily lives. Basically everything you can possibly buy at the store involves some sort of plastic these days, even groceries. People have gotten extremely used to the "single-use" lifestyle and simply disposing various items, whatever they may be, after unwrapping a newly purchased item. However, this plastic lifestyle has started to seriously build up. And I mean, REALLY build up. If you had to guess, how much plastic would you say is currently floating in our oceans? Did you know that there is currently a plastic "continent" drifting around in the Pacific Ocean? You bet there is, and its situated right in between Hawaii and East Asia. It is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Okay, so there's a lot of plastic floating in the ocean. But what are the main problems associated with this? Turns out they vary to quite a large extent.

Plastic debris, due to the way that the currents run, distribute it all along the coastlines of various counties and societies. This creates a huge economic and social problem for all of the communities involved that now need to clean up this mess. Some of which are countries that may not have the resources readily available either.

Plastic has also been found in almost all ocean species in the food chain, from the very top to the very bottom. Not only do we lose animals because of this, but micro plastics have now even gotten to our own food chain. Once we consume the fish that we buy, that same fish that consumed the plastic is now eaten by us. Fish and other ocean creatures confuse the plastic as food and other fish, and mistakenly eat it on accident. This problem is only growing with the more disposable items that we have on a daily basis. Many disposable items aren't recyclable, which inevitable end up in landfill or blow away into our oceans.

What's being done to fix this debilitating problem? Luckily, there are some incredible businesses and organizations working to resolve the problem of plastic waste in our oceans and marine ecosystems. One of which is The Ocean Cleanup, which was founded in 2016, is a global nonprofit that is now launching leading cleanup technology to use the natural currents of the water to bring the plastic to shore, then recycling it properly. 

We are proud to support businesses in cleaning up the plastic that litters our oceans and ecosystems. Remember, while recycling is definitely important piece to our plastic puzzle, reducing the use of plastic ultimately leads to less being made, and reusing the plastic that we all already have helps eliminate the "single-use" problem as well. Buy a wooden watch, help clean our gorgeous oceans from plastic debris and the animals that have to deal with them. Buy a wooden watch, be the change you want the world to see.

Thank you for taking some time to learn about this very important issue that we all have to face together. 

We also wanted to give a special shoutout to our wonderful community here at The Wooden Journey, and for looking so good with your wooden gear. Your support is truly making a difference and we want to thank you all tremendously. Lets continue to welcome more in our community together.

We are all connected, and we are all in this together.