Through small changes, YOU can make a big impact. This past week, we celebrated World Ocean Day. We took the time to celebrate the magnificence of our world’s oceans and beaches. Here are 10 ways YOU can help the ocean and beaches. 1. TAKE TEN MINUTES TO FIND TEN PIECES OF TRASH Do you have a few minutes in between your sunbathing or intense game of beach volleyball during your time at the beach? Bring a recyclable or reusable bag to pick up 10 pieces of trash on the beach. If you can’t make it to the beach, picking up litter will still be helpful because trash can make its way from inland streams and rivers to the ocean. 2. USE A REUSABLE BEACH BAG Carry around your belongings with the planet in mind. Leave any single-use plastic bags at home. Using a reusable bag can help decrease the demand for cheap, polluting, plastic bags. 3. USE A BOXED WATER OR REFILLABLE CONTAINER TO KEEP HYDRATED Boxed Water is a paper-based, sustainable-option to plastic water bottles. As part of Boxed Water’s commitment to the planet, the company is planting trees in our national forests and sponsor beach cleanups. Take a picture, spread the word. Make a social media post featuring Boxed Water using the #BetterPlanet hashtag and Boxed Water will plant two trees on your behalf. 4. JOIN A BEACH CLEAN UP The Ocean Blue Project will be hosting a variety of beach clean ups throughout this year. Beach clean ups provide a fun and proactive way for you to help keep our beaches and oceans clean. Click here to see the full line up of national beach clean ups. 5. TAKE A TRIP TO A NATURAL AREA Natural wildlife reserves and conservation centers are great places to learn about the marine life that lives in our world’s oceans. Many aquariums can also offer educational sessions to learn more about specific species. What’s your favorite sea creature to visit on the coast? 6. PICK UP AFTER YOURSELF Don’t leave waste behind at the beach for someone else to take care of - it’s the responsibility of all of us. Look for your nearest recycle bin. Encourage your friends and family to recycle too! Together, we can keep our beaches and oceans clean. 7. MAKE A PLASTIC REDUCTION PLEDGE! We encounter plastic every day! Make the pledge to sustainable alternatives to plastic. Boxed Water uses paper, a great alternative to plastic which comes from a renewable resource around us - trees! 8. DITCH THE STRAWS Single-use, plastic straws are not recyclable, and they are polluting oceans & beaches. The easiest thing you can do is skip the straw, but if this isn’t possible use a paper straw or reusable stainless steel straw instead. Join Ocean Blue’s Going Strawless Wave Summer Campaign to make a difference in your local area! 9. LEARN ABOUT YOUR CITY’S RECYCLING PROGRAM Check out your city or town recycling website to see how you can recycle. Reduce, reuse, recycle! If your city does not have a strong recycling program, ask your favorite local businesses to start recycling. 10. EDUCATE YOURSELF AND OTHERS Take a trip to the beach, read a book about sea turtles, or maybe watch a documentary about our world’s beaches. You can enjoy yourself while you learn about our amazing planet. Micro Plastic Beach Cleanup | Video It’s a sunny summer day and you are at the beach with your friends. You are excited to find the “perfect spot” on the beach to relax. From a distance, the water looks crisp and the beach sand looks clean. As you get closer to the water, something looks “off”. The shoreline is littered with a strange clear material. Some of it has a strange color to it. As you look into the water, the same strange material is floating in and out with the waves. What happened to the beach? Single-use plastic. That’s what happened. We interact with this OIL-based material daily and it’s just about everywhere. To make things worse, plastic can take 700+ years to break down! It’s suffocating our planet and its wildlife. Plastic is wreaking havoc on our world’s oceans. In fact, over 8.8 million metric tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean each year! This number is expected to double by 2025. How can you make a difference? Sign up for a beach clean up on the Ocean Blue Project’s website! Just click on the Events tab to find the event nearest to you. The Ocean Blue Project beach cleanups offer participants the opportunity to make a positive impact on our world’s oceans and learn more about the importance of cleaner beaches. It's time to act now and stand up for clean beaches and remove as much as possible until a larger solution happen! Refuse plastic water bottles and buy paper over plastic.Ocean Blue and Volunteers are avoiding plastic water bottles to help save the ocean. Pick up your boxed water today at: Boxed Water Is Better
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November 2019
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6/21/2018