Caribbean waters are poisoned with plastic. Roatan screams for help, and Caroline Power delivers a strong message.

We use single-use plastic items to eat and store our foods. We have our coffee in plastic cups. Yes, you even eat your food with plastic forks. Stats show that we use plastic every day. It’s convenient and cheap. But, where does all this plastic go?

We’ve seen piles of plastic lying around the neighborhood. Plastic poisons our waters and destroys our marine life. This should be on the news every day. Stop using plastic!

Photographer Caroline Power helped us see the damage we have caused in the past years. She took some photos off the Honduran island of Roatan.

Today, heaven on earth looks like a scene from hell. Roatan’s heavenly shores are covered with plastic. Power, a resident of Roatan, took the photos of the idyllic island. her paradise is now a big landfill. Tons of plastic float in the most beautiful blue waters in Roatan. Plastic bags, bottles, cutlery, packaging material… Roatan waters have it all.

Power and a team of divers approached the sea of plastic. Five miles of plastic. According to Power, the sea of plastic was 2 miles wide at some points.

The team was devastated to see broken footballs, soda bottles, toothbrushes, shoes…  They believe that the Guatemala Montague River has been carrying this trash into the ocean for years. People in Honduras have “contributed” to the problem, too.

How can we solve the problem with plastic pollution? First, we need to learn that disposable plastic is not our friend. We need to replace plastic with materials that can be reused or recycled. Next, we need to find a way to clean up our waters.

Save the oceans

Ocean waters need to be clean. Why would anyone turn beautiful beaches and coastlines into landfills? Support local initiatives to address the problem. Governments need to hear NGOs and support their projects. There are so many cleanup missions and they all need financial support.

In 2013, Dutch inventor Boyan Slat founded The Ocean Cleanup. He was 18 at the time and his project had great success in Delft, Netherlands.

Slat wanted to make a change, and today, his team has 80 members. Engineers, researchers, scientists, and computational modelers have joined forces to make The Ocean Cleanup work.

“The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization, developing advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic,” the website reads. “By utilizing the ocean currents to our advantage, our passive drifting systems are estimated to clean up half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 5 years’ time.”

There are a few great projects focused on the problem, and inventors need a hand in their fight against plastic.

Final words

Roatan is 12 miles long and 3 miles wide. The garbage patch covers 5 miles of ocean waters near Roatan. The beautiful coastline is covered in trash and hopefully, Power’s photos will make you think twice before using disposable plastic.

People in Roatan have raised their voices, and they need to be heard. They have to be heard.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk