Used with permission from C. King of Sharkastics
Use Less Plastic
By Amy Fonarow
November 4th, 2019
Take a deep, cleansing breath and close your eyes. Imagine pristine ocean waves crashing against a beautiful shoreline. Listen to the burble and shoosh of these rhythmic, living waters. Feel the salt spray dancing lightly across your skin. Notice how good this ocean makes you feel. Now, hold this place in your mind. It belongs to you.
How would you want it to be treated?
Your ocean is under threat from many anthropogenic quarters these days. Climate change, which is accelerating at an unprecedented rate due to our addiction to fossil fuels, is leading to increased water temperatures and ocean acidification across the globe. These conditions are killing coral reefs. Marine debris is rampant, even in the most remote corners of the world, and single-use plastics make up a large part of the problem. Though both issues can seem overwhelming to one single person, every single person can make a big difference.
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, halfway between the Hawaiian Islands and California, there is a place where the currents come together, quiet down, and create an area of relative calm called a gyre (pronounced “jai-ur”). Usually, a gyre is full of plankton – marine plants and animals that cannot propel themselves against currents. These organisms are the crucial first link in the saltwater food chain, and they make up the bulk of the biomass in the ocean. Animals and birds travel to this veritable buffet to nourish themselves and their young.
There are five major gyres in the world’s ocean, and because of human decisions over the years, all that delicious plankton has been joined by a slew of trash that now stretches (in the North Pacific) to about three times the size of France – from the top of the water column to the bottom of the sea. At this point, there is a garbage patch in each of the five gyres, and quite a bit of it is made of single-use plastic items – things that are used only once and then thrown away.
Most man-made plastics are composed of oil, and they don’t dissolve into the ecosystem like, say, an apple core. Instead, they break down into smaller and smaller solid pieces called microplastics. It has been discovered that plankton is eating microplastics. Fish and birds eat plastic, too; over time it smells like food to them. On Midway Atoll during nesting season, adult albatrosses are feeding plastic to their chicks. Great whales and dolphins have been washing up dead and full of plastic items.
Even if marine animals aren’t pursuing plastic to eat, ingesting it is often unavoidable for them; plastic can be swallowed because it is floating next to – or it is already inside – a desired meal. Fish eat plankton that has eaten plastic, larger fish eat those fish, and some of us eat the larger fish.
Even if you’ve been vegan since birth, and you only drink from a stainless steel water bottle, you’re still taking plastic into your body.
Because the ocean is a large component of the water cycle, plastic littered and dumped into it is now in the air. There are plastic particles in indoor air, too. A recent analysis estimates that each of us ingests about a credit card’s worth of plastic every week.
In addition, a 2018 study by the University of Hawaii determined that common single-use plastics give off greenhouse gases when exposed to heat from the sun. This information suggests that using fewer of these plastic items will reduce the amount of “climate-relevant trace gases” (the study’s term) being released into our atmosphere.
Back in the gyres, entanglement and drowning is a huge problem for marine animals like turtles, birds, dolphins, sharks, and other fish. Discarded fishing nets, which continue fishing as long as they’re submerged, make up about 46 percent of the marine debris in the North Pacific Gyre. Animals can also get caught up in fishing line, six-pack rings, and anything else that has the ability to wrap around them as they move through their world.
Simply put, any time we can use less plastic is a good time for everyone on the planet.
Okay, then . . .
Photographer – Elyssa Ramstetter
What can we use instead of plastic?
The Plastic Health Coalition has collected and detailed a plethora of alternatives, categorized by different areas of life such as as household, kitchen, and travel. There are more options than you might think!
In the meantime, here is a quick list we’ve put together:
- Refillable water bottles
- Reusable coffee cups
- Bamboo or metal straws (or no straw at all if your lips work fine)
- Carry your own set of eating utensils made of metal or bamboo
- Aluminum or bamboo toothbrushes
- Fabric or paper bags
- Wear clothes made from natural fibers
- Wash synthetic clothing less often
- Consider sneakers made with marine debris
And what can we do about the plastics already in our ocean?
Photographer – Elyssa Ramstetter
No matter where you live, the trash you see on the ground is heading toward the lowest point – the ocean. Just picking up one piece of litter will make a difference, but you can gather friends and family and start your own movement!
Marine biologist Cheryl King has been collecting data for years on trash found in Maui that has been chomped on by marine life. The next time you’re out there, you can help her Sharkastics team pick up and sort marine debris from a secluded, rocky coastline. Plus, if you have a seaworthy vessel and can captain her well, feel free to follow the lead of Mary Crowley and her Ocean Voyages Institute, and go even bigger than that!
Whew! The current situation regarding climate change, corals, and plastics is a lot of information, so let’s take a few minutes to pause and synthesize it.
Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, so you can feel where your body is. Drift back into your ocean meditation. Sink into that calm, quiet, and irreplaceable space.
When you’re ready, open your eyes.
Look around your living space. See what’s in your purse or backpack. As you stroll through the market later on, take a moment to check in with your personal sea. Is there anything you might change to help keep your ocean safe?
Mahalo nui for keeping this new knowledge in mind.
Enjoy your ocean power, and thank you for staying conscious!
Viewing 10 to 15 feet away is a respectful distance
Photographer – Lloyd Johnson
Skin Care and Body Awareness
By Amy Fonarow
November 4th, 2019
While enjoying natural bodies of water, use the power of your amazing body for good:
- When exploring the ocean, stand only on sand, and do not touch the reefs.
- Wear sun-protective clothing rather than sunscreens to safeguard your skin.
A coral reef is structured like a city. Small animals called polyps build and live inside their own one-bedroom “condos.” Thousands of condos make up entire “buildings” known as coral colonies, and several buildings clustered together makes up a “city,” which is what we call a coral reef.
Reefs are very delicate, and they grow very slowly – just one centimeter per year in Hawaii. Touching corals can crush their polyps outright, and it also makes them more susceptible to bleaching and disease. In addition, our skin can be easily cut by corals’ sharp skeletons. (Despite “Survivor” rumors, coral cannot actually grow inside the human body. If it could, I’d offer myself up as a host; corals need all the help they can get these days.) That being said, if you need to take a break while snorkeling or swimming, please take a stand on the sand.
Many chemicals in sunscreens have been proven to be toxic to coral reefs. Some sunscreen chemicals act as hormone disruptors, so they’re not great for our bodies, either. The non-profit Environmental Working Group has created an in-depth sunscreen ingredient guide with human health in mind.
When it comes to corals, the animals that build them – polyps – reproduce in two different ways: They clone themselves in a process known as budding, and they spawn to mix their gametes with those of other colonies. Spawning occurs through each polyp’s calcium carbonate skeleton. When chemicals with estrogenic effects direct those skeletons to grow, there is the potential for them to grow closed, thus preventing the release of eggs and sperm.
The oldest coral reef on Maui is called Olowalu. It’s about 600 years old, covers over 1,000 acres, and is located on the west side. When Olowalu spawns, it’s not just seeding Olowalu, or even the west side of Maui. Real-life spawning data gathered by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey helped them create a coral larval dispersion model. It turns out that Olowalu’s pre-polyps also seed the reefs across two separate channels on the islands of Lanai and Molokai! (See it for yourself in Figure 5.) This means that when something happens on one reef – at least in the Maui Nui Basin, the effects are felt throughout the ecosystem. (Dare I say “beyond the reef?”)
Our best bet, then, to protect our skin and our reefs is to wear sun-protective clothing. (C’mon, who doesn’t want to be like these awesome surfers?)
Have fun out there, and thank you for staying conscious!
Tova Callender and West Maui Kumuwai
Reef-Conscious Home and Vehicle Care
By Amy Fonarow
November 4th, 2019
It’s interesting how much of our day-to-day lives affect the ocean. The nearest coral reef may be thousands of miles away, but the things you put on the ground and into your nearest body of water will eventually make it to our world’s ocean. Sediment, in particular, can damage shallow-water coral reefs by blocking the sunlight they need to thrive.
One sunny day while walking home from the bus stop, I noticed milky water running down the gutter and into a storm drain. I followed the water up the street to find a young man rinsing a paint roller into the driveway with a hose.
I waved and introduced myself before asking, “Did you know that this paint is going straight into the ocean?”
He instantly straightened, turned of the hose, and replied that he hadn’t thought about it.
We all know what we know until we know more, right? Yes, and then we know that, too.
There are many things we can do to ensure our properties and vehicles – as well as the actions taken to care for them – are kind to the ocean. Here are some examples.
Use a commercial car wash
One of the simplest fixes is to go to a car wash instead of washing your car at home. This costs a little money, but it saves you a ton of time, and all the dirt, oil, and soap that comes off your car is collected and filtered out by the establishment. When you wash the car at home, everything generally runs down the driveway and into the storm drain, just like the paint mentioned above.
Plant a rain garden
Since you can’t run your home through a car wash, hosing it down or waiting for rain are your main options to keep it clean. The water carries dirt down your rain spouts and onto your property, where gravity ensures it heads for the lowest point – the ocean – unless it is intercepted somehow. A rain garden does exactly that!
This shallow depression is purposely created to slow and utilize sediment and oil that would otherwise pollute surrounding waters. Your rain garden can be filled with native plants, too!
In this video, Soak Up The Rain New Hampshire demonstrates how to create a rain garden. Once you’ve built one, there’s no need to stop with your yard – consider bringing your community together to plant rain gardens in public spaces!
Ready for a plethora of new ideas? West Maui Kumuwai’s simple ocean-friendly home guide outlines more home care topics including what to plant, how to water, and even how to handle pests. If your climate is different from Maui’s, their guidelines will still point you in the right direction.
As you learn more and choose to act in the ways that work for you as well as your waterways, the ocean will thank you for your consideration.
Enjoy, and thank you for staying conscious!
Amy Fonarow is a technical journalist, science communicator, ocean advocate, and singer with a BA in psychology.
Conscious Content Collective 