January news: An update on our  impact & why we’re using our carbon miles to fly to Bali | Ocean Bottle Store

January news: An update on our impact

 ...And why we’re using our carbon miles to fly to Bali

Before we get into why we're heading to Bali, our thoughts for this month come with news that thanks to our community of supporters around the world, we have funded the collection of 359,638.05kgs of plastic equivalent to 31.6 million plastic bottles! 

We’re going to be in Bali at the end of this month to meet with many of the Plastic Bank team and carry out some plastic collection. We also intend to make a film about what we do, meet with some hotels, surf groups, and ocean activists whilst out there.  After all, we’re flying to the other side of the world and we need to make those carbon emissions work hard. Any traveling we do is offset by C-Level, although this doesn’t give an excuse to keep flying it helps mitigate the necessary. 

In the clip above you’ll see the main Mangrove Forest in Bali, Nusa Lembongan. It covers 2215.5 hectares that are distributed in the south in Denpasar and four other districts. The video was taken last week by our friend Paul from Plastic Bank. He’d be the first to admit, it's not the most exciting nor beautifully shot video. It looks ugly on Youtube, it’d look ugly on an Instagram feed. But it’s raw and real and things like this need to be shown every now and again just to remind us to keep talking about the plastic crisis, keep saying no to that single-use plastic and keep supporting initiatives we believe in. Not only is this plastic waste seeping out into the oceans it’s messing with one of the planet’s greatest assets; Mangroves. 

Mangroves are vital to the health of our oceans, they support much of the oceans’ fish population in infancy and many argue, suck up carbon more efficiently than any other type of forestry. There’s a great study on them here

Believe it or not, Plastic Bank collectors have been focused here day in day out for many many months, and much great work has been done so far. Remember, only 10% of global plastic waste actually gets recycled, it often ends up in places like Bali. These areas just become dumping grounds for the rest of the world’s plastic waste. Governments and organisations are investing in recycling infrastructure on home turf, soon they’ll be following in the footsteps of Norway who recycle over 90% of their plastic bottles! But this will take a while and sadly we know the rate of plastic consumption in the world is only increasing despite the best efforts of many. 

Ocean Plastic Solution Sustainable Water Bottle

However, the good news is that Bali also happens to be one of the places we’ve seen the most impact. Plastic Banks have been popping up across schools, churches and out of the back of shops all over the island. We can’t wait to get out there and see it for ourselves. Make sure you check out our social to see us document our time there. 

Message in a bottle brought to you by Iona 

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