Perreault Magazine - 107 -
What is your current involvement? (community level and/or global level)
I have had the privilege of spending more time than others in the ocean and have seen things that others haven’t. People need to know. My job is to inspire people to go see for themselves and to use their talents, whatever they are, to make a difference for the natural world. There is a growing awareness, which is the best way to counter indifference. People who know might care. They can’t care if they don’t know. They might not care even if they do know, but they can’t if they don’t know what the issues are. So I travel around the world speaking to people at all levels, asking them to wake up to the realities of threats to ocean health like plastic pollution, climate change and overfishing.
In order to educate, inspire and empower individuals worldwide, we need to provide the tools for them to engage. What are the tools you / your organization are offering for people to be part of the solution to plastic pollution?
In 2010, enough plastic washed up on shore to cover every inch of coastline on Earth. That doesn’t even include 99% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean every year. Now we know—now we can act. People around the globe can stand up, armed with knowledge, and demand an end to disposable plastic and mismanaged waste. All countries around the globe have a responsibility to contain whatever plastic they create and consume. It’s up to individuals—scientists, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, kids!—to find creative solutions to plastic pollution and ignite that sense of urgency to cause change.
My foundation, Mission Blue, uses lots of online tools to inspire people from all around the world to care. We use social media and our www.missionblue.org website to spread awareness about plastic pollution and cleanup work done by our partners, like Parley for the Oceans, which is finding creative ways to collect and repurpose ocean plastic into designer clothing and other exciting products.
Anything we can do to stop plastic pollution at the source is the number one priority. It’s not going to do a whole lot of good to look at what’s out there if we don’t turn off the spigot first. As for the issue of how do we clean up what’s already out there, beach cleanups are good and finding appropriate ways to collect and recycle what’s in the ocean and creatively repurpose our trash are certainly worthy goals. It seems like a thankless task, but the ocean thanks you.