The Fight Against Plastic Lasts Beyond Earth Day

This Earth Day focuses on the impact of plastic pollution and the opportunities to mitigate this crisis that impacts our environment and, especially, our oceans and marine life.

The United Nations says more than 800 species worldwide are affected by marine debris, with plastic making up 80 percent. Fish, seabirds, sea turtles, and marine mammals can suffocate, starve and drown when they eat or get trapped in that plastic.

Ann Colley, the Director and Vice President of The Moore Charitable Foundation, previously wrote in a piece with Cape Fear River Watch’s Kemp Burdette (“Where plastic flows into the ocean”) that a stray plastic bottle has an easy path to polluting our oceans, and also to breaking down into microplastics that pollute our bodies through the food we ingest, such as that seafood swimming in plastic-filled waters.

To keep us and our planet safe from harmful plastic waste, we need to act now, including by eliminating single-use plastics, conducting beach cleanups, supporting policies against plastic use, promoting recycling, and educating communities about plastic pollution and its threat to the environment. Through these efforts, we can turn the tide against plastic pollution.