Plastic beaches?

Yesterday I walked along the main beach on Midway Atoll  and I noticed something a little peculiar. The sand is so white, it seems like it's glowing but when you look a little closer you see that the beaches are filled with little pieces of plastic. Some are as large as a laundry basket and others, a gain of sand.

I thought this was really disappointing. To see that the beach is already so filled with plastic was really hard and so sad. We're in way over our heads with this problem of plastic pollution and if we don't change our habits of abusing single use/disposable plastics then our beaches will soon be composed of only plastic. I thought of this quote by John Wayne while I was sitting there "Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway." I am honestly so scared and intimidated by what I've been seeing here on Midway Atoll but it has inspired me more then ever to live plastic free and to tell people what they can do to use less plastic and share the horrors of what is happening here. I will be speaking to schools and other organizations when I return and I would willingly share my stories with you or your organization. Please email me, emily_chartrand@hotmail.com and I would be honoured to present to your group. 

As I have said before, everyday I notice something new about this island, sometimes good and far too often sad. Shorty after I walked along the beach, Victoria Sloan Jordan our production coordinator and I went to this field that was filled with albatross! 

We went there because we knew that there was an extraordinary amount of plastic in the grass with the birds. So we collected as much as we could so we can show people in our presentations and had a few curious albatross come over to check us out!

  After, we ran out to catch the sunset. It was gorgeous and the crew got some great shots.

 

-Emily