It’s Plastic Free July!

This month we encourage all of you to challenge yourself when it comes to your use of plastics. If you have been thinking about making a switch from a traditional plastic based product to a non-plastic based one, learning how to use the Clean Swell app and cleaning up in your neighborhood, or making a bigger commitment to going plastic free, now is the time to do it!

Why go plastic free?

As divers, we see the impact plastic pollution has on the ocean, its inhabitants and natural processes. However, there are also direct impacts  marine plastic pollution has that we can’t see with our eyes! The following two facts we recently learned have made the importance of reducing our plastic consumption even more apparent:

• Polyethylene plastic (bottles and bags) that end up in the ocean release greenhouse gases including methane and carbon dioxide at a faster rate than plastic debris on land because of the increased sun radiation they are exposed to when in the water! This means they pose a double threat to the ocean! (Royer et al., 2018)
  

• Plastic fishing line is now the most commonly found and reported plastic marine debris in the ocean! It is 3x’s more prolific than plastic bottles and plastic bags! (Roman et al., 2020)

REDUCE, reuse, recycle

You have likely heard the phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle.”  Whether you learned it in school, read about it in the news, or have just heard it in passing it is an excellent guide to how we can begin to address the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans!

Reducing your personal use of plastics and asking companies you patronize to do so as well, whether through your spending habits or through other action, is a critical first step. Blue Planet is in the process of completely eliminating  single-use plastic both in the store as well as in our personal lives and we hope you will join us on this journey for Plastic Free July.

For the month of July we invite you to join our team “Blue Planet Scuba” online and take the Plastic Free Eco Challenge and set plastic free goals for yourself each week! 

We will also be hosting the following events in July: 

• Tuesday, July 14: Join us for a virtual happy hour on going plastic free! We’ll share our tips and tricks for reducing plastics in our daily lives. We’d love to hear your secrets too!
  

• Sunday, July 19: It’s time for another socially distanced Dive Against Debris at Sandy Point State Park in Annapolis! Earn a new specialty certification while helping keep the Chesapeake clean!
  

• Sunday, July 26: Help clean up closer to home with a socially distanced Rock Creek Park cleanup at Pierce Mill. As a Rock Creek Conservancy Stream Team, Blue Planet is committed to keeping trash out of our waterways. You can make a huge difference with just a couple hours of volunteering!