Many bright spots amid data about oodles of plastics afloat in our oceans at this week's Mid-Atlantic Marine Debris Conference at George Mason University in Virginia. I was so impressed with all of the thinking and analysis going into how to communicate effective messaging to specific audiences around source reduction and the gains in data collection.
Unlike many types of pollution, plastics are fairly traceable to their sources including sourcing balloons to individual events like weddings. I learned that blowing bubbles is a better, yet still fun choice!
For sometime, I thought that banning items, one by one, and then jurisdiction by jurisdiction was not an efficient or sophisticated policy approach but when you hear, worldwide, the average person uses 140 plastic bags per year (!), it seems imperative to take every step possible.
Photos by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash