As a leader in sustainable ecotourism and international adventure travel, Aggressor Adventures® encourages shoreline clean-ups around the world. Recently, five Aggressor staff dedicated 10+ man-hours to cleaning-up the shoreline of Treasure Island, Honduras while the Belize Aggressor IV was in dry dock, filling over 17 trash bags with 136 pounds of trash.
“As divers, we know the oceans need our help now more than ever, and here at Aggressor Adventures we get that,” says Samantha Whitcraft, Aggressor’s Director of Conservation and Outreach. She continued, “scientists estimate that more than nine million metric tons of plastic waste enter the oceans every year comprised mostly of everyday items we all use and discard, usually after only one use.” For example, most of the items cleaned-up during this effort were discarded, single-use plastic from food service such as plastic bottles/caps, straws, plastic cutlery, and to-go containers (5 large garbage bags of it). Another whole bag of more durable but discarded plastics was also collected. The second-most common items that were cleaned-up were paper and metal items – discarded newspapers and magazines; and cans and scrap metal.
With Earth Day right around the corner (April 22), let’s all remember the four R’s of sustainable use – Reduce, Re-use, Re-purpose, and Recycle. Implementing these in our daily lives can help reduce the amount of trash entering our oceans to begin with.
Aggressor Adventure’s CEO Wayne Brown says “We strive every day for excellence in our green operations that are already in place, yet as global adventurers, we witness first-hand the impact pollution has on our surrounding environment, especially our oceans. It’s our responsibility to change that. I’m so proud of our staff and their success with this shoreline clean-up. As a company, we continue to be pro-active when it comes to keeping our adventures environmentally sustainable for our customers, for future generations, and for the planet. By adding a yearly clean-up to our Green the Fleet® sustainability initiatives, we will continue to be part of the solution and help our guests understand how they can join us in our efforts.”
