Today we spent our day at Sani beach, a few kilometers outside the town of Kyparissia. It is one of the long sandy beaches of the Gulf of Kyparissia that are important nesting beaches for the loggerhead sea turtle. The fine sand is full of traces, which testify that many turtles came out here to lay their eggs. Unfortunately, apart from nests, the beach was full of rubbish, mainly plastic bottles. So an idea came to us to make a big bottle out of bottles in the sand! This caught the attention of some people who came close to see what we were doing. So we took the opportunity to share with them some interesting facts about plastic bottles, such as the following:
- Globally, nearly 1.000.000 plastic bottles are sold every single minute!
- Bottled water requires up to 2,000 times the energy used to produce tap water
- 80 % of bottles end up in oceans or landfills
- It takes at least 450 years for a plastic bottle to completely degrade.
- Plastic bottles, like any other plastic, when they are exposed to the environment, dissolve into smaller and smaller pieces, the so-called microplastics. Pollutants that can be very toxic attach to them. Unfortunately, microplastics are now found everywhere, in the air, in rainwater, in animal organisms and of course in the human body.
The evidence is shocking and has caused concern to those who have heard it. We imagine the same to you who have just read them. So we hope that you will think twice before buying the next plastic bottle!
