Can you fill in the blank in that statement? I wonder what it will take.

Jellyfish Entangled with ocean’s debris of plastic and ropes. ABC News: Under the Sea: A Garbage Dumping Ground.

Scientists, corporations, politicians, environmentalists, et al are looking to the year 2015 for their efforts to help create actions, products, initiatives to support sustainable living and therefore stave off the disasterous impact of global warming on our climate to see if indeed the situation has begun to reverse itself…..that is only 7 years away.

Kimilo Beach. Oceanographer cites consumer “throwaway” culture as reason for ocean pollution. ABC Nightline’s Under the Sea: A Garbage Dumping Ground.

I can say despite all the gloom that is reported nightly around the world and projections of doom unless things are reversed that I do feel hope. Reason being is that there is so much momentum behind this movement that it is beginning to swoop up the garbage and debree with much the same force as we began dropping it, probably beginning with the industrial revolution.

White by Winnie Liu for Innermost is a chandelier made up of a collection of just what’s around but now a thing of beauty.
Every trade show and conference and then some is having whole show events this year based around what that group can do to alter the impact of global warming. One of the big topics coming out of these shows, (and I’ve covered the topics from the Housewares Show in my posts from all last week) is to purchase better product that lasts longer, to make better product that lasts longer, to design better product that lasts longer and to just say no to buying………

That’s bad news for H&M and Zara’s and maybe Wal-Mart where much of the mass produced product that doesn’t last is sold, used for only a little while and then thrown away. I am torn on this subject because the H&M’s and Zara’s & Wal-Mart’s make many things accessible to people who haven’t had access or otherwise wouldn’t have access. I’d hate to see a “no consumerism” mentality turn into caste systems of haves and have nots……….when we are proposing fair trade as part of sustainable practices, we are also talking about how people are treated. This tact can be a slippery slope.

My own personal opinion, besides reducing greenhouse gases, purchase vehicles (and manufacture them) that get 30-40 mpg city and hwy driving, recycle if your city has this as an option and if not help to make it mandatory by state, stop drinking bottled water (buy other containers to hold your water in and refill), insist that all those companies whose products you and I purchase start bottling them in degradable containers, purchase organic cleaners, use low VOC paints, switch all printing to digital media and if you can’t use recycled paper products………and stop buying plastic unless it is either recycled or degradable, and I say degradable so that it will break down in landfills.

If you didn’t see it, ABC’s Nightline did a segment on the spot in the Pacific Ocean off the Northern Coast of North America where the ocean’s flow creates a swirl effect and pulls in it all of the plastic that we are throwing away…..it’s staying right there in the ocean and makes up much of the water from top to nearly bottom of pieces of plastic (over 80% of the flotsam and jetsam is plastic) over an area the size of Africa. I was sick about it last night (heard about it from one of the speakers at the Housewares Show) and felt the need to make a statement this morning.

More than a few of my clients have based their companies production on injection molded plastic and its been a true blessing in managing most everything we do everyday in efficient and affordable ways, until now. Because most plastic just doesn’t break down in landfills or our plastic Ziploc bags go nowhere but in the ocean as a consequence of littering the majesty of our wilderness and natural havens are being threatened………the pile of toothbrushes that showed up from scavenge hunts on Nightline’s segment was the final straw for me.

The technologies are available; the consumer is there and waiting………..so now is the time to make those changes; it’s an ingredient change and hey we’ve got seven years to do it. If there’s anything I’ve learned in my lifetime, it’s that incredible things can and do happen in the space of one year let alone 7, especially if there’s a massive world-wide effort behind it.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, I’m gonna….. (you fill in the blank).

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