Daniella Russo, Plastic Pollution, Blue Vision – In the News

Tweet

Daniella Russo, Plastic Pollution Coalition’s co-founder put the plastic industry on notice this weekend at the 3rd Blue Vision Summit. Daniella reminded the attendees that: “Plastic Pollution Coalition has over 140 organizations, with a

cumulative network access to hundreds of thousands of people, and a growth rate of about 1,000 people a week. We have over 40 celebrities that endorse our mission and goals, but our most meaningful achievement has been branding the term ‘plastic pollution.’ We are doggedly, persistently, insisting on calling the trash phenomenon in the ocean ‘plastic pollution,’ and not ‘marine debris.’ ‘Marine debris’ is an encompassing term that covers much more than plastic, but, in its inclusion of all things garbage, there is an omission that the greatest component of marine debris, is in fact plastic pollution.”

Daniella has been making a name for herself recently by taking on the plastics industry and challenging them to face facts, that plastic pollution is just that, pollution that is wrecking havoc with our oceans and our waterways. Daniella first put the plastic industry on notice at a “Marine Debris” conference in Hawaii earlier this year, where she confronted industry reps and made them “call a spade, a spade,” calling for the abandonment of the term “marine debris” and to put in it’s place the more accurate description “plastic pollution” since the majority of debris in the ocean is plastic. Plastic pollution is a serious issue that we need to face and address – hiding behind the innocuous term “Marine Debris” won’t cut it!

Tune in this weekend to the Blue Vision Summit, which brings together leaders of marine organizations working on ocean and coastal protection and restorations. The Summit has been credited with helping to build a nationwide network of ocean activists ready to act at the local level to assure passage of effective ocean legislation.

While you’re at it, grab the kids and check out progress of another one of our ‘ocean eco heroes” Roz Savage, who has also brought worldwide attention to the issue of plastic pollution. Roz is currently in her third week of her solo row across the Indian Ocean. Roz has already set international records by being the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, visiting some of the ocean gyres found thousands of miles away from human civilization, yet full of plastic pollution!

Remember, recycle all your plastics, or better yet, precycle and try to cut them out of your life, as best as you can, not an easy task, as we proved when Climate Mama took part in the Rodale Plastic Free Week earlier this year.