What gets poured down the drain often ends up in our waterways and the ocean. Lots of household waste also finds its way to the sea. The cleaning chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, and plastic waste that we use in our homes can travel downstream and wind up polluting and harming the ocean.
While the ocean was once considered a bottomless dump, we now know that there are limits to what it can safely absorb. Everyday cleaning and yard-care products can greatly harm the ocean and even your health. These chemicals and excess fertilizers are causing dead zones in the ocean where life cannot survive. There are lots of ways to maintain a healthier yard, home, and ocean.
Did you know that there is a giant plastic soup twice the size of Texas circulating out in the Pacific Ocean? Plastic marine debris is a huge problem for fish and other sea life and can even make its way up the food chain to humans. Single-use plastics such as grocery bags and bottled water we use for just minutes spend thousands of years in the sea. These leading offenders are also some of the easiest things to cut out of our lives. You can take durable bags when you go shopping and fill up a reusable water bottle.
It’s easy to start taking steps to make our ocean safer for fish and people to swim in!
- Use ocean-friendly household cleaning methods
- Use natural fertilizers and pesticides and rethink your garden to complement the native habitat
- Utilize reusable shopping bags and water bottles and reconsider my overall plastics use
