Change Within to Change What Is Without

I just bought a box of delicious kumquats, of the yielding of our small world. What’s going on with our world everyone? It’s working overtime for us while being contaminated. How can we let this happen to our world? We must change within to get this right. Let me explain what I’m trying to convey. It’s time to love our beautiful world; not in part, but in whole. I must interject this thought about what’s going on with our oceans. On the afterhours news I saw garbage patches taking up more space than should be allowed. Each year millions of tons of plastic enter the ocean, after flowing from river channels. Several portions of this plastic flows into the ocean and develops huge garbage patches. This junk gets stuck in the vortex of our ocean’s currents. Garbage patches will eventually outweigh all of the ocean’s fish, if we don’t make a change soon; and the largest — the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — includes an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of trash and covers an area twice the size of Texas.

Our world is aching. Is there something wrong here? Yes. Headline-grabbing oil spills account for just 12 percent of the oil in our oceans. Around three times as much oil including garbage is carried out to the ocean via runoff from our roads, rivers, storm drainpipes, and sewer overflows, causing pollution and marine litter. Nevertheless, oil spills and other pollutants have taken its toll on the wild and oceanic life. We must decrease this useless death of mammals of our lands and seas. We need to start doing responsible dumping and recycling of oils and trash.

The world is being poisoned from within. I’m no scientist, but this can’t be right. Why are we here? What am I to do to make our oceans well? I’m starting here and now to do something about it. I must search out our resources to find this out. I must be right within to make a change without. I’ll change the world around me. I can almost hear a little voice within me say that the little I can do is like a drop in the bucket, but many drops will fill a bucket. If we all lend a hand in this effort we can make the world a better place to reside. Let’s organize cleanups at local beaches and roadways. Let’s go somewhere and leave it better than when we came. Let’s pick up bottles and all the unsightly beach trash that pollutes our river streams and oceans and put all of that into garbage cans and recycling bins. Let’s make a promise to not litter ever again, and to recycle more than before everyone. Hopefully this will start a chain reaction, a ripple effect, if you will. We can beautify the environment.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the top 10 marine litter items include:

● Cigarettes and cigarette filters

● Plastic bags

● Food wrappers and containers

● Caps and lids

● Plastic beverage bottles

● Eating utensils

● Glass beverage bottles

● Beverage cans

● Straws and stirrers

● Paper bags

What is even more frightening is that the garbage can remain in the environment for extensive years before they even begin to break down. For example, cigarette butts can take up to 10 years to biodegrade while plastic bottles can take 450 years.

If plastic pollution has not been a part of your thoughts, I recommend watching the documentary entitled, A Plastic Ocean. After viewing such a movie, you’ll then understand the harmfulness of plastic pollution to our ocean world and us.

The best thing we can do to protect our oceans is try to keep as much plastic as possible out of the waste stream in the first place. There are many small ways we can have a big impact. We can refresh our oceans and help the edibleness of the gardens of the deep. I’ve made a change within through my plans. Some may say I’m a dreamer, but it starts with a vision to make it work for this world’s sake.

1. Plan A: Let’s do in house recycling. We can do sustainable recycling, repurpose and recycle coffee creamer bottles. They can be used for snack storage, salt and similar products. They make pouring incredibly easy. They look pretty neat without the outside label wrappers on them.

Here’s another ditty of an idea, if you’re into DIY, don’t just toss the bottle, make plastic bottle cups, we can cuttingly remove the top of the bottle, and turn a soda bottle into a makeshift cup. We can reuse them as sipping cups or for office work supplies like pens, pencils and such.

2. Plan B: Currently, I’m ingratiating ridesharing. I’ve decided that I’m going to make the next vehicle I purchase an energy efficient, non toxic, environmental friendly, plug-in hybrid. My dream car is in the making. By doing this, I will help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds emitted due to the consumption of fossil fuels, and render support to our ecosystem’s wellness, as well.

3. Plan C: Save the plastic milk cartons after use. First, cut a portion of the bottle out and leave the handle in tack. Whenever we need to melt ice on our steps, garden our plants or even clean up after our pets, we can just scoop and toss. A DIY scooper. Oh yes.

4. Plan D: We’ve given much thought to the bottle portion of plastic bottles now let’s think about what we can do with the caps. Adults can check out crafting a plastic bottle caps lamp. We’ll need a total of one hundred and eighty bottle caps to do this DIY project. There are thirty-six bottle caps per side. Make five sides. Apply the melted glue with the glue stick melt tool to the bottle caps and attach each cap with each other. Line up six bottle caps and melt tool them together. Do this five times more with additional caps, using the glue stick melt tool to bring them all together for one side. Once we’ve made four sides, glue them all together, similar to a square. Cut out a square piece of sheetrock or thin particle board and put a hole in the center of the sheetrock or thin particle board, and then attach the Square bottle cap top sides to it with the melt tool. Run an electrical cord through the hole in the bottom. Affix bulb base correctly with proper tools. Screw in a light bulb. Glue stick melt tool the top side on it, turn it on, and za rah da dah.

2-liter bottles can start herb gardens. Upcycle 2-liter bottles into sub-irrigated planters. This is one of the more creative plastic bottle projects. Follow these steps to create an herb garden from a recycled bottle: Take 2 liter soda bottles (or whatever size we choose to use). Remove the label from the bottle and clean the inside. Take a sharp object and poke drainage holes in the top third of the bottle. Poke a hole in the side of the bottle about half-way down. Wrap a piece of paper around the bottle. Take a marker and trace a cutting line around the bottle. Cut along the bottle on the line. We can paint these green, white or whatever color. Flip over the bottle top and insert a strip of fabric – cotton string, twine, or even strips of a cut up t-top (make sure it is cotton so that it properly absorbs the water moisture). Put soil in one’s makeshift planter. Soil gives the plants the nutrients they need to grow. However, plants can grow without soil too, using a process called hydroponics. Plant those seeds. Soon, you’ll have a mini-garden all your own.

5. Plan E: We all can upcycle a lotion bottle into a charging dock. Let’s make a cell phone charging dock. Make it easy on ourselves and guests by creating a recycled cell phone charging dock. All one would need is a lotion bottle, a marker and a box cutter. And then design away.

I hope you’ve found these in house recycling plans fun to do, like I have. We can recycle at our local recycling centers, as well.

Let’s become thoughtful about recycling everyone. We need to make ourselves think, “Plastic bottles and products are to be recycled.” We may not be able to recycle every single last thing, but we’re making a good effort. Recycling helps keep plastics out of the ocean and reduces the amount of “new” plastic in circulation. Recycle properly.

One innovative idea I thought up for a larger scale of recycling to take place is for a cleanup team to be organized and sponsored by recycling centers for a RV mobile road trip to travel across the nation doing diverse roadsides, byways, and ocean-side cleanups and recycling the garbage. This mobile cleanup team of volunteer recycling workers would cause a buzz around the world to increase cleanups and recycling habits indubitably. Something like that happening would make a great impact and a fantastic documentary movie.

If you need help finding a place to recycle plastic waste near you check out Earth911.org’s recycling directory. It's also important to check with your local recycling center about the types of plastic and paper they accept.

Let’s make this a priority, and not have this be an “Anyone could do, but nobody did,” idle initiative. We can, and we will. We can rid our oceans of plastic contamination and pollution. Let’s be supportive of this action. Together we can make a different better refurbished world.