WORLD OCEANS DAY ALERT: We must protect our oceans, marine animals, and coastal communities from rampant plastic pollution before it’s too late to stop the PLASTIC APOCALYPSE! Take action now! >>
World Oceans Day is just 3 days away, so what better time is there for you to get involved and advocate for healthy and sustainable oceans?
With summertime on its way, many of us are already daydreaming about sitting on the beach: toes buried under a layer of soft sand, watching the sunshine glisten on the waves while they peacefully crash upon each other as the refreshing ocean breeze grazes your toasty skin. Sadly, this picturesque tropical fantasy could soon be out of reach — because plastic waste is decimating our oceans, ruining our beaches, and killing some of our most beloved aquatic creatures like baby sea turtles, dolphins, and seals.
We aren’t talking about small numbers here either. OVER A MILLION marine animals and seabirds are killed every year from plastic pollution.
Remember the tragic story of Gingerbread? Gingerbread was the baby sea turtle in Florida who died weighing only as much as a carrot when researchers discovered an alarming 24 pieces of plastic in the poor animal’s tiny stomach! Every day, harmless marine animals like Gingerbread are mistaking plastic debris for food, causing them to die from ingestion or entanglement.
If plastic pollution continues at this rate, not only will we lose critical marine species that contribute to healthy biodiversity, but our oceanic ecosystems could completely crumble: putting our entire Earth and all its living beings in danger.
Our planet cannot survive without clean and healthy oceans, so the plastic crisis impacts each and every one of us. In honor of World Oceans Day, we’re mobilizing environmentalists like you who will speak up against out-of-control plastic pollution that’s destroying our fragile oceans. Can we count on you to add your name right now?
88% of the ocean's surface is already polluted by plastic. Imagine enough plastic to fill an entire dump truck every single minute, day and night, all year long: that’s the type of plastic crisis our planet is facing. At this rate, scientists are even predicting there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050!
While it’s true that our oceans serve as an epicenter of biodiversity, there are other ecological benefits to healthy oceans as well. We rely on the ocean to provide us with HALF of the world’s oxygen AND storing 90% of additional heat caused by global warming. Oceans act as a carbon sink absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere to help mitigate climate change.
For decades, our oceans have continued to suffer the devastating consequences of reckless plastic pollution. Now, life on Earth as we know it is on the line. Plastic is already infiltrating every aspect of our life and putting human health at risk by contaminating our food chain and degrading water quality — exposing us to toxic chemicals. Meanwhile, plastic production itself burns through excessive amounts of harmful fossil fuels and emits pollutants into the atmosphere, exacerbating global warming and harming the health of petrochemical workers and nearby residents.
Plastic is one of our ocean’s and our planet’s biggest threats, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a duty to protect us from it. But instead, the agency has FAILED to address the plastic crisis in any meaningful way, instead letting Big Plastic corporations and their friends in the fossil fuel industry recklessly put our oceans and our planet in harm’s way — all for the sake of profit.
This World Oceans Day, we refuse to be silent and sit idly while Big Plastic and Big Oil’s corporate greed threatens our oceans and our planet. Will you take action today and stand with us to defend our oceans from rampant plastic pollution? Sign now to tell the EPA we demand federal solutions to the plastic crisis immediately! >>
Thanks for having an impact with your voice today.
Friends of the Earth
