5 Gyres - Understanding Plastic Pollution Through Exploration, Education, and Action

It never ceases to amaze, dismay, disillusion and challenge me to visit a vacant coastline on a remote corner of the earth and see this. 

From the beaches of eastern Sumatra to Danang, Vietnam, from the islands in the Andaman Coast in Thailand to Swakopmund, Namibia, from Elbow Beach, Bermuda to Carrapaiteira, Portugal, from the beaches of Santa Cruz, California to Tofino, British Columbia, from Faial in the Azores to most recently, Sandy Bay in Saint Helena, wherever I go, I find I have already been. 

In the form of tiny pieces of brightly-colored plastic bits, once part of my shampoo, detergent or mustard bottle, my yogurt carton or drinking straw, I find our human stain impossible to overlook. 

Walk down a once-pristine shoreline of a remote mid-Atlantic island as I just did and dig your toes in. Pull up a handful of sand and look what you have between your fingers. To varying degrees, it will be a composite of synthetics and geology.

The sad truth, if you choose to acknowledge it, is that these are the sands of our future, unless we choose to do something about turning uninformed consumption into awareness, responsible consumerism and activism. The hourglass has been tipped, and I, for one, will not sit idly by while the tiny brightly-colored grains of sand slip away from us.