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Plastic is not fantastic

If you look around at the office, at home, or in the car, we’re surrounded by plastic everywhere. Plastic bottles, phone cases, sunglasses and more. There’s nothing wrong with that. Plastic is basically a friend of our everyday life and makes our lives a lot easier. But in one place, I can’t accept plastic at all. In the oceans and seas. Because I’m a diver. I remember my very first dive during a holiday in Egypt in the Red Sea back in 2009. A very nice instructor, Suzy introduced me to As a regular traveler, I always experience the damage that irresponsible human behavior and littering do to nature.

This summer I visited the island of Borneo, one of the most exotic islands in the world with unparalleled wildlife (e.g. Bornean orangutan, pygmy elephant), rainforests and top-listed dive sites (Kapalai, Sipadan, Mabul). As many fantastic things I’ve seen on one side, I saw so many carelessnesses on the other one. I brought some pictures and videos that I mean: Kota Kinabalu is a metropolis of 200,000 people on the island of Borneo. In addition that on the local market all oranges are packed in single-use plastic bags, even the washing-up is replaced with plastic. The plastic plate is pulled into a plastic bag and after the guest finished eating, they take the bag off with a simple gesture and pull a new one on it. the mysteries of the underwater world and thanks to her I learned the basics of diving.

Diving was love at first sight and after a one-decade relationship, it’s not just a fleeting romance. I can’t describe with a single word what it feels like being underwater, but I give it a try. The sea for me is a place:

  • Where space and time are eliminated, with all the troubles and annoyances.
  • Where breathing is as natural as if I were on the surface.
  • Where millions of fish swim away before your eyes like in the movie. But it’s just not a movie, it’s the reality.
  • Where wild dolphins come close to you out of curiosity and let you pet them. In the meantime, they’re communicating with each other with a sharp whistle, commenting on you.
  • Where the turtle next to you is just eating the soft corals, he’s probably having lunch.
  • Where sharks float away dignifiedly. They have no intention of attacking you, they just go ahead and go their own way.
  • Where you’re only a tiny point of nature. You get so close to it that you are almost one with it.
  • Where your sense of freedom is as endless as the ocean itself.
  • Where you can be yourself

Recently, there was a Greenpeace action in the Heroes’ Square calling attention to the ban of single-use plastics. I’m not an activist type, and probably won’t be. But as a diver, I felt I have to be there because this topic belongs to the oceans too. Click on the image gallery:

As a regular traveler, I always experience the damage that irresponsible human behavior and littering do to nature. This summer I visited the island of Borneo, one of the most exotic islands in the world with unparalleled wildlife (e.g. Bornean orangutan, pygmy elephant), rainforests, and top-listed dive sites (Kapalai, Sipadan, Mabul). As many fantastic things I’ve seen on one side, I saw so many carelessnesses on the other one.

I brought some pictures and videos of what I mean: Kota Kinabalu is a metropolis of 200,000 people on the island of Borneo. In addition that on the local market all oranges are packed in single-use plastic bags, even the washing-up is replaced with plastic. The plastic plate is pulled into a plastic bag and after the guest finished eating, they take the bag off with a simple gesture and pull a new one on it.

YouTube video

We visited Borneo tilt houses, where you see how polluted the sea is. These mostly non-degradable plastic wastes get to the stomachs of marine organisms and cause their destruction. Scientists warn that if this trend continues, by 2050 there will be more garbage in the oceans than fish, which is very disappointing. What damage plastic can do to marine life, you can see here. Currently, around 150 million tonnes of plastic waste are floating in our oceans. The most critical is the continuously growing garbage island, which is roughly 1.6 million km2 in size, much of which is made up of plastics.

The good news is that the island has begun to be demolished this year, although the process is still in the experimental phase and is progressing slowly. The good news you can do against it. If you don’t use as much disposable plastic every day. For example, if you fill your drink in a glass or metal bottle instead of a plastic bottle, which is refillable, so you don’t throw it away unnecessarily. If you support NGOs that make bracelets from waste extracted from the ocean. The benefits will be used to clean up additional coastlines. I already have four bracelets that I wear proudly every day.

As a diver, I joined a Hungarian EcoDive Club, whose aim is not only to take pictures of beautiful fish during our dives, but also to the collection of deep-sea waste. I am currently in 42nd place with my paper bags that I collected during my two dives in Borneo, but I am continuing this mission on my upcoming diving in Egypt. I’m doing all this so that if I look back in 10 years’ time and write another scuba diving post, I can tell you what it feels like swimming with wild dolphins in the sea instead of swimming with plastics. I brought you a video of my dive from October 2017 in the Red Sea.

YouTube video

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