Celebrating 5 Years of SEA Change
5 years ago, the Sea Change Expedition sailed across the North Atlantic – the culmination of our global survey of plastic pollution, but are we any better today than we were then?
The Schooner Mystic, a gorgeous 170ft. tall ship, carried a handful of people who would end up leading the plastic pollution movement. Kimi Werner, a free diver and spear fisher, shared a video of her gliding along an 18ft great white shark while holding onto the dorsal fin. Jack Johnson, singer/songwriter with one foot on land and the other always in the ocean, filmed his documentary Smog of the Sea. Kristal Ambrose, founder of the Bahamas Plastic Movement, showed the crew her work to push a national campaign to ban plastic bags across the Bahamas, which succeeded a year later. Matt Prindiville, director of Upstream, came to share his experience fighting for producer responsibility and currently leads his team in the effort to transform the global dependence on throwaway packaging to revolutionize products, packaging and delivery systems to eliminate waste. Dave Stover, co-founder of Bureo Skateboards, brought energy and ideas. Lauren Singer, and ambassador went on to found Package Free Shop, a zero waste shop that recently opened in Williamsburg, NY. And Carolynn Box, a former colleague and forever friend, who recently co-founded the Goods Holding Company. They and dozens of others became part of a 3500-mile sail from Miami to the Bahamas, north to Bermuda and west to New York.
We sailed on the heels on the 2015 Microbead-Free Waters Act, the emergence of the global movement Break Free From Plastic giving a greater voice to the global south, and simultaneously, the industries making and using plastic waking up to a public backlash to the tsunami of plastic stuff they were creating without a legitimate endgame. We have witnessed the remarkable emergence of thousands of leaders across the globe to build a movement.
But things have changed. The tragedy of the pandemic has unleashed a flood of single-use plastics in the form of protective gloves and masks, and an exponential increase in goods delivered with throw-away packaging and materials. Protecting front-line workers is paramount, and we will get through this but the pandemic also shows us our vulnerabilities, such as overstretched supply chains and food security challenges. What world do we want to create when the economy re-emerges?
It’s time for a SEA Change. The confluence of social justice and environmentalism have awoken a generation demanding a new direction. The negative externalities associated with the extraction of raw materials that flow in a linear economy straight to the dump, incinerator or the ocean are now laid bare for all to critically appraise and we don’t want it. Single-use plastics do not exist in the future we want – one that is dignified, respectful, and responsible to end any harm created. This assault from plastic waste pollutes people and the planet and impoverishes communities that can no longer manage huge volumes of worthless trash.
The pandemic is an opportunity to make that grand shift, whereby the old extractive systems are inexcusable and circularity must rein. New reuse business models, like RePak, Vessel, Ecovative, GoCup, GoBox are leading the way. Nations are eliminating single-use plastics from their societies and local circular economies are imagining systems where basic needs and modern technological needs are better met in a small radius around the consumer.
The movement continues to grow, ever adapting to changing circumstances, and always remembering that change, with constant pressure over time, is inevitable.
