NOWHIRING

Outboard Motor Technicians

IF WE ALL DO A LITTLE, WE CAN AND WILL ACCOMPLISH A LOT

There’s no doubt about it, Lower Alabama is heaven on earth. With its remarkable fisheries, beautiful beaches and extensive wildlife, what’s not to love about it? Pollution, that’s what. Currently we produce about 390 million tons of plastic a year. While plastic does have a place in the world, it’s become very problematic to our waterways, including our drinking water sources. It is estimated that 14 million tons of plastic (or the equivalent to 5 grocery bags full of plastic per foot of coastline) enter our waters annually. As plastic breaks down it becomes microplastic and in time, smaller particles called nanoplastics. Alarmingly, they’re showing up in samples taken from the muscle tissue and guts of fish, birds and other marine inhabitants. Folks, I recognize this is not an uplifting column to read, but out of sight, out of mind, turning a blind eye or saying, “I didn’t contribute to any of this”, will not fix the problem. We created it, and now we need to fix it. So, how can each of us help reverse this alarming trend?

To start, get brilliant on the basics, reduce, reuse, recycle, use cloth bags, take no plastic to sea, make recovering some plastic and other trash part of your “day on the water”. In summary, there is no curbside pickup for our waterways, let’s get innovative and get them cleaned up. If we all do a little, we can and will accomplish a lot.