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1 - Reduce your plastic consumption
The death of more than 50% of sea turtles today is due to ingestion of plastic waste, according to marine biologists… and it takes at least 450 years for a single bottle of water to degrade naturally.
In order to reduce our own plastic consumption, we can avoid buying bottled water (to trade for a water bottle), but also avoid all single-use plastic objects : plastic bags or even disposable dishes!
2 - Always throw cigarette butts in the trash
The cigarette butt is the number 1 waste: every year 4.5 billion cigarette butts are thrown away in the world. A single cigarette butt pollutes up to 500 L of water because of its toxic compounds! As our partner Surfrider Foundation Europe would say: “To throw on the ground is to throw at sea”, so if you are a smoker, extinguish your cigarette butts and always throw them in the trash or ideally in specialized collectors !
3 - Find out about the composition of your clothes
At Balzac Paris, it's a commitment that is an integral part of our TPR (Always More Responsible) approach: choosing materials that have a low impact on the oceans . We then turn, for example, to organic cotton , without polluting pesticides, or even Seaqual ™ , a material produced from plastic waste collected from the oceans. Some labels, such as GOTS (Global Organic Textile Sandard) or OEKO-TEX®, make sure to preserve the quality of water (and therefore of the oceans) by stopping substances that are harmful to aquatic ecosystems.
4 - Use a Guppyfriend bag
Washing clothes made of synthetic fibers releases microplastics into the water, which pollutes rivers and oceans . By retaining 86% of these microplastics during their passage through the washing machine, this large washing bag avoids 35% of the microplastics found in the ocean ! It also protects your clothes and thus prolongs their life.
It is available on our eshop ! Adopt it here :
5 - Limit your carbon footprint
The oceans absorb around 30% of the CO2 emissions we produce. This is not without consequences: according to Ocean Open, current levels of ocean acidity have increased by 26% since the start of the industrial revolution. This has irreversible repercussions on the marine fauna and flora !
To reduce your CO2 emissions, a few daily actions can make the difference: prefer travel by bike or train to those by car, limit your meat consumption , buy LED bulbs or even choose the “eco” programs of your household appliances. .
6 - Organize or participate in a waste collection
You have certainly already passed by the edge of a river or along a stretch of beach invaded by waste. Our partner Surfrider Foundation Europe has set up the Ocean Initiatives which organize large waste collections throughout France and Europe! They are organized to raise awareness among participants , but also to use participatory science to produce data on the phenomenon of marine pollution and in particular that of plastic pollution. Do not hesitate to get closer to the Surfrider Foundation Europe branches closest to you to participate or organize your collection!
PS: Do you remember our Ocean sweatshirt ? For each sweatshirt purchased, €30 is donated to our partner Surfrider Foundation Europe to support Ocean Initiatives ! It's coming back soon, subscribe to the online alert so you don't miss it.
7 - Adopt a RRRR philosophy!
RRRR? Reduce, Repair, Reuse, Recycle. An acronym cousin of our famous TPR (Always More Responsible) which encourages people to reduce their overall consumption (“Do I really need it?), to repair or reuse as much as possible what we have (“Do what I really have to throw it away… Or can I resell it on the Second Hand Balzac Paris platform?”) and to properly recycle what needs to be thrown away (“How do I facilitate the second life of my waste?”) . Because the waste that pollutes the oceans the least is the one that we don't create!