WE CAN SAVE OUR ENVIRONMENT...if all work together. SUGGESTIONS, SOLUTIONS, RESOURCES to help toward this effort.

In 2016 I was shocked when I learned about the unimaginable amounts of plastic pollution in the world's oceans. This sad fact motivated me into action, so last the spring I began researching this subject.

You see, I love the ocean, and can't stand see it so carelessly destroyed. My love for our planet and the oceans started when I was a child, growing up in the small hill town of Torretta, which overlooks the Mediterranean Sea, about 15 miles southwest of Palermo, the capital city of Sicily.

In this article I would like to share with you my findings and how we can help in protecting planet earth. I will briefly present explain the problems first, then I provide you with the suggestions/solutions (even my lessons/presentations on the ocean, and documentary movies), and finally the sources- where you can find facts and more detailed information- if you, like me- want to learn more and educate others.

The future of our planet is at stake. Everyday we're getting closer to a point of no return- a worldwide ecological disaster. We are allowing corporate greed to destroy our beautiful life giving planet, our soil, our air and our oceans. We're allowing fossil fuel and plastic industry gradually and deceivingly degrade our earth with high levels of CO2 emissions from auto-vehicles, plastic pollution (of the oceans and all other bodies of water- rivers, lakes, ponds, marshes, etc), with micro beads, that are spewed out into our air and water by billions of pounds. Microbeads are present in cosmetics, toothpaste and some liquid soaps, in polyester/synthetic clothe and automobile tires (hence electric driers- when they are used to dry syntetic clothes, and the billions of car tires beating and deteriorating on paved streets- release tire particles (also microbeads) into the air.

So, it is clear and urgent that we all must work together to stop this degradation of our environment, before it is too late. We all can help to alleviate and reduce this serious threat to our health and our future.
We can help if we all apply the 7RS; Reduce, Refuse, Recycle, Reuse, Rethink, Respect and Retell. We must;

Reduce our CO2 footprint (by using less use of energy and avoiding harmful products, like plastics and fossil fuels).
Refuse plastic bags when we go shopping (and instead use paper, and/or your own reusable bags), and avoid also the use-once-only plastics).
Recycle more, especially plastics and products with microbeads.
Rethink of ways of/solutions in order to save our environment.
Respect our planet by treating it with consideration/care.
Retell, inform others about these threat to our survival- me must let our local, State, national and world leaders know that we are very concerned and we expect urgent, efficient steps on their part.

Sources:
1. Time to Ban microbeads-entirely https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/08/06/time-to-ban-microbeads-entirely.html

2. 4 Things You Can Do To Ban Beauty Products Containing Microbeads http://sacredhabitats.com/2015/09/21/ban-beauty-products-microbeadsbanning-beauty-products/

If you're a teacher and would like to teach your students about the ocean (it's benefits, it's animals, how the ocean feeds us and supports life on earth, how we are destroying, and what we can do to save it), then copy and paste the link below on your address browser and view my presentation, title: The Ocean. Why we Like it

http://ottaviolopiccolo.blogspot.com/2016/06/ocean-why-do-like-it-lets-take-look.html

PART 2;

4 Things You Can Do To Ban Beauty Products Containing Microbeads

Anna Cummins, executive director and co-founder of 5 Gyres, an organization working to reduce plastic pollution in the oceans. She celebrated the passage of the California ban as game-changing. Given the size of the California market, she is optimistic that this legislation could force more sweeping changes. “Manufacturers are not not going to be able to create a product for California, and a different product for other states,” she added.Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed a bill into law in July that bans the manufacturing and sale of personal care products containing tiny plastic beads that are known to pollute waterways.
The law makes Wisconsin one of seven states including Illinois and New Jersey to ban the tiny pieces of non-biodegradable plastic known as microbeads, often used as an exfoliant in soaps and toothpaste. It bans manufacturing of microbead products at the beginning of 2018 and their sale at the beginning of 2019.
Some manufacturers are already responding to what appears to be a shift in demand. Many multinational companies such as Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, The Body Shop, and IKEA have pledged to stop using microbeads in their personal care products. While authors of the report note the positive impact that such internal policies have had on the industry, they believe that a sweeping, federal ban will be necessary to secure real change in aquatic environments.
Microbeads are so small they often slip through wastewater treatment systems and end up in nearby waterways, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
In 2014, Illinois became the first state to ban microbeads after a team of researchers with 5 Gyres Institute, a California-based environmental group, found high levels of beads in 2012 from samples taken at Lakes Erie, Superior and Huron. Scientists have also found beads in the ocean.
Fish mistake microbeads for food and eat them, threatening the ecosystem and human health, according to Clean Wisconsin.
The Personal Care Products Council, a trade association representing the cosmetics and personal care products industry, supports bans on microbeads.

“We are guided by the core value to do the right thing based on the best available science when addressing product safety or the environmental impact of our products,” the council said in a statement after the Illinois bill was signed into law.

California’s State Assembly has approved a measure to ban microbeads, which are touted by big companies as skin exfoliators.
A 2013 study found as many as 1.7 million of the tiny plastic particles per square kilometer in Michigan’s Lake Erie, one of the bodies of water in the Great Lakes Region where many of our debris end up.
Because they’re so small, micro-beads don’t get filtered out by wastewater treatment plants. Instead, they get discharged directly into rivers, lakes, and the ocean.
There, fish, turtles, and other aquatic wildlife feed on the tiny bits of plastic, which to them are often indistinguishable from food. But rather than simply getting eaten and discharged by the animals, the micro-beads become lodged in the animals’ stomachs or intestines. When this happens, the animals often stop eating and die of starvation or suffer other health problems.
“We have the evidence that the micro plastics do cause harm,” Marcus Eriksen, the executive director of the 5 Gyres Institute, a research group who led the 2013 study, told Scientific American. “I am hoping we can translate that research into some positive action.”
Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, and Procter & Gamble have all made pledges to phase out the most common kind of micro-bead from products.
The International Campaign Against Microbe ads in Cosmetics has compiled a helpful list of the products that likely contain micro-beads.