• ​Recycle

• Bring your own coffee cup

• Bring a reusable straw or don't use a straw

• Bring reusable bags for shopping

• Pack water in reusable bottles

• Buy in bulk to limit packaging

• Shop local to reduce plastic packing material

​Single use plastics include items such as plastic water bottles, straws, take-out containers, plastic grocery bags, styrofoam cups and other items that are used only one time and then discarded. We recycle less than 10% of all plastic we use, and the remainder ends up in our environment in  landfills as well as in our oceans.

Plastic trash is polluting our water. There is a giant floating island of garbage floating between California and Hawaii that is estimated to contain 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic and as much as 150 million tons of plastic may be floating in our oceans according to the World Economic Forum. The Canadian Government estimates 8 million tons of new plastic is dumped into our oceans every year, and by 2050, plastic could outweigh the fish in our ocean if this trend continues. Plastic is a danger to marine life and has been the cause of death or mutilation to many ocean dwellers.

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Unfortunatley, plastic takes a very long time to decompose and a lot of plastic doesn't really decompose completely but breaks down into microbeads. Microbeads are tiny pieces of plastic that can float in the ocean then get absorbed by fish when it gets ingested. Eventually, humans eat the tainted fish and are exposed to unhealthy plastic morsels. A 2015 study published in the journal IOPScience estimated that in 2014 there were as many as 51 trillion pieces of microplastic. It's frightening to think how high that number must be today.

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