The Starfish Straw

By Maddy VanCamp

Maddy is a new Open Water diver this year with a passion for our oceans and our Earth; please take a moment to read her message!

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Eco-conscious art by Stephania of Cancun! Children care!

Our world is facing one of the most serious pandemics in history: The pandemic of plastic pollution. Since the 1950’s approximately 8.3 BILLION tons of plastic have been produced worldwide. With a meager 9% of those plastics being recycled, the rest has been left on our planet to decompose, a process which can take up to a thousand years.

Plastic is responsible for the death of over 1.1 million animals per year, and these numbers are growing. For the animals that do escape the fate of death by plastic, the majority will still spend a life with a stomach full of micro-plastics. And as we work our way up the food chain these micro-plastics work their way up to humans, as we consume food contaminated with plastic particles. At the rate that our society is increasing its plastic consumption, most of these statistics are set to nearly double by the year 2050.

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Resuable straws - there are so many products to choose from!

This is where you come in, by making some small lifestyle changes, it isn’t too late to make our world better! Plastic straws are one of the most common single use plastics being washed up on ocean shores. This month I have teamed up with a company called “The Starfish Straw” to try and make a difference. The Starfish Straw is a company that sells reusable straws. They work to raise awareness and reduce the use of single use plastics with their products! To show their support for conservation, a portion of their profits are donated to the “Save The Sea-Turtle Foundation”. Their goal is to save marine life and our oceans from plastic pollution.

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The Starfish Straw company has generously provided me with the discount code “SeaSaver” that will give you 30% off of your purchases for the month of December. I’ve decided to share this code with those who cherish our beautiful planet as much as I do. If we all work together I believe we can one day go diving in an ocean that is free of plastic and garbage, and switching to reusable products like the Starfish Straw is a simple first step that can be taken towards saving our oceans.