Last week, we experienced extremely low tides around the Puget Sound and I was lucky enough to get to spend the day at Salt Creek state park on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It was a gorgeous day and we spent hours wandering from tidepool to tidepool, admiring huge purple sea anemones, giant orange sea stars, delicate blood stars, colorful sea urchins, and more.
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We also spent quite a bit of time picking up and pocketing plastic bags, chunks of rubber foam, fishing line, and other random pieces of garbage.
The years I spent working in wildlife rehabilitation have shown me that this kind of garbage isn’t just ugly, it’s deadly.
This garbage can kill animals from sea turtles to whales to albatross, and more. It starves the water of oxygen and pollutes beaches from shore to shore.
So, not only is it important to reduce our use of durable materials — disposable razors, toothbrushes, plastic bottles for water and soda pop, ziplock bags, etc. — to cut down on the amount of non-recyclable products going into our landfills, we also need to remember that this trash is literally choking our oceans, and their animals, to death.
As yet another incredible, little-understood but largely-plundered, resource suffers from our excesses, right now is a great time to look again at the small changes we can all make to make a big difference for our oceans.
Zibby