Last year I was educating myself in cruelty-free beauty and now I've expanded into an eco-friendly life and seeing how I can reduce the amount of plastic and packaging I use in my day to day life. I also try to partake in beach cleanups near me, you can read about my first one here. A friend introduced me to 4Ocean. A company whose goal is to reduce the amount of plastic in the ocean by selling bracelets - yes you read that correctly. Customers can either get one single bracelet or a sign up to a monthly subscription to these bracelets, which are made out of recyclable materials found in the ocean. By purchasing just one bracelet, it allows the company to pull 1lb of rubbish from the sea.
As you can see in the images the bracelet has the 4Ocean logo, a thin adjustable cord which is made from recycled polyester, and recycled glass beads. Each month 4Ocean bring out limited edition bracelets of which they give profits to different charities. For example, at the moment they have a green and yellow bracelet to support Marine Nurseries.
So far there have been 1,144,460 bracelets sold, therefore 1,144,460 pounds has been removed from our oceans.
According to 4Ocean, it's estimated that 16 billions pounds of trash makes its way into the ocean.
They hire crews from around the world to clean up different aspects of the ocean. Over a year ago I was conducting some internet research for a video production company on ocean waste. I hadn't personally seen or heard of how much waste was in the ocean, I had never thought about it before. Until that is, I came across The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. A floating trash island.
The fact that these bracelets are made from materials found in the sea just astounds me. Earlier this year the BBC reported that there were more than 80,000 tonnes of rubbish forming this floating island. This specific area is between Hawaii and California, this rubbish patch is just one of five areas across the planet, but it's by far the largest. The rubbish congregates in areas where strong currents sustain the "island" in strong whirlpools. As well as the literal plastic pollution made up from bottles, containers and the like, these plastics then start to disperse microplastics into the ocean's water.
These items end up here either just by the sea drawing in rubbish from the land, winds depositing plastics, tools and nets used by fishing companies and fisherman, or even via boats which are trying to move recyclable items or rubbish to another continent to be disposed of or recycled. In the past year, China has refused to take in and deal with other countries waste and recycling. This could have an even bigger environmental impact on the UK if we struggle to keep waste out of our environments.
I don't want to bore anyone too much with my preachy environmental views, but my blogger friend Sophie has a whole bunch of informative posts on Environmental Issues and Zero Waste living.
Because I love our planet and nature, I've been making baby steps to try and reduce my contribution to our world's waste. My favourite alternative is reusable coffee cups, you can get aesthetic one's from Primark from £2.50. Using these cups can save you an average of 15p per hot drink from most coffee shops.
Let me know if you'd love to hear about my personal changes to try and be more environmentally friendly, it's something I've been getting very passionate about this year.
Photo credit: Connor Cleary on his Canon 5D Mark iii.
Disclaimer: I purchased this bracelet out of my own money and I've not been sponsored to write about 4Ocean or the topics discussed - I'm just really happy with this product and have a chip on my shoulder about plastic waste.
Yes!! This is such a good post and I'm so glad people are talking about these things more. It is so important to start reading up and educating ourselves on these things. Every small change can make an impact and even inspire someone around us to do the same. I always try to recycle as much as humanly possible from our household and it really angers me that there are still so many products that come in non-recyclable packaging when they could so easily switch. I love the idea of this company and the concept and it must be so nice knowing you've contributed to their mission with buying a bracelet!
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