Fake Plastic Straw Ban

I briefly got excited when I saw this sign at a local McDonalds. Sadly, I quickly realized it is meaningless.

1. They proposed reducing the use of plastic straws for only one day
2. The targeted audience was only dine-in customers; take-out customers presumably still got plastic straws
3. There are straw dispensers on the counter; dine-in customers don’t ask for straws, anyway, they simply take them

Therefore, this one-day event probably resulted in absolutely no reduction in straw usage. This sign continues to sit on the counter near the straw dispensers, from which anyone can still take as many plastic straws as they wish.

You can do better than this, McDonalds.

Turn Plastics Into Pesos!

Filipinos can trade plastics for pesos at the Plastic Bank in Barangay Balatas, Naga City! That’s right: they will pay you to bring them plastic. Their mission is to clean up the streets and waterways while alleviating poverty.

I’ll be honest: I was hoping to have a precise location and more information by now. Sadly, I can’t seem to find anyone willing to investigate this opportunity. Even Filipinos with zero income have expressed zero interest, even if they live relatively near Naga City.

So, I’ve decided to do this backwards. I will try to raise awareness of this opportunity first, and hopefully someone will eventually seize it. Once someone earns real pesos off of turning in plastics, then the news will hopefully spread far and wide. After all, sadly, there is more than enough plastics (future pesos) lying around and floating around everywhere.

Get Swaggr

I got excited the other day when I saw a tweet about Swaggr (@GetSwaggr on Twitter). Swaggr are athletic socks that “are made almost entirely from recycled plastic bottles.”

https://getswaggr.com

But, Jacqueline Macleod (@TalamhLifestyle) had a great question: won’t microfibers from these socks end up washing out of our laundry and into our oceans? Yes, but @GetSwaggr has an answer for that!

Through their research, @GetSwaggr has come across GuppyFriend, which they say is one option that can be used to help prevent microfibers from entering the water system.

GuppyFriend washing bags (@patagonia on Twitter) help collect the microfibers that are released in wash cycles. This pertains to all your laundry, not just your Swaggr socks.

https://www.patagonia.com/product/guppyfriend-washing-bag/O2191.html

So, the only remaining question at this time is, “what do we do with the microfibers collected in our wash cycles?”

I have made two suggestions to @GetSwaggr:

1. Include microfiber collection bags with the socks; at least make it an option, anyway.

2. Allow customers to return the microfibers to them so that they can be re-recycled into more socks, something else, or anything else.

The company has been very responsive to these suggestions.

With the disclaimer that I do not yet own either the socks or the bags, I am going to publish the following “sock math” equation:

Swaggr + GuppyFriend + (pending microfiber disposition solution) = an environmentally-friendly sock solution.

No, this doesn’t solve all our plastic problems. However, it would reduce the number of post-consumed single-use plastic bottles out there while also preventing microfibers from the recycling solution from becoming an even worse problem.

Got better ideas? As stated above, the company seems very responsive.

FYI: Swaggr launches on Indiegogo on Wednesday, October 17th.

DISCLAIMER: There are no paid-or-otherwise-compensated endorsements in this blog article. I hate plastic pollution.

The Philippines’ 1st Ecostore

Scuba diving has turned me into such an ecowarrior, I have opened what is probably the first environmentally-friendly sari-sari store in the Philippines. It’s not perfect, sadly, because perfect products are not available. But, we sell only the most ecofriendly products that we can find. For example, we sell bars of soap in cardboard boxes, instead of the sachets that litter the countryside and ocean floor.

Laundry detergent and fabric softener are almost universally sold in sachets, as well. As much as I hate the amount of garbage produced, at least I found sachets that are labeled “recyclable.” Competitive products are not labeled as such, so we do not stock them.

Paper stem cotton swabs are hard to find in the Philippines, but you can find them at Robinsons supermarkets. Tragically, they are packaged in single-use plastic. However, I would rather convert my neighbors to using paper stem cotton swabs in single-use plastic than allow them to continue to use plastic stem cotton swabs in single-use plastic.

Like paper stem cotton swabs, it’s hard to find biodegradable wet tissues in the Philippines. And even though the wet tissues are biodegradable, the packaging is not. These are occasionally bundled on sale in single-use plastic, but I buy them individually and pay full price to avoid the unnecessary extra plastic.

We also offer refills at low rates. We ask customers to bring reusable containers, and we keep our prices lower than buying sachets or small bottles elsewhere. Plus, the bottles we purchase are recyclable.

Sadly, I don’t believe the Philippines actually recycles anything. However, I am confident that these recyclable products will eventually find their way into the North Pacific Garbage Patch, where Boyan Slat and The Ocean Cleanup will retrieve them for recycling.

The best part of this experiment is that it is slowly working. Our location and prices make it a better choice to buy these products than to walk some distance to pay a little bit more for previously-preferred, environmentally-damaging alternatives.

It is important to note that most of our customers rent rooms from us or family members, which allows us to offer competitive pricing. Whatever the cost is to us, we only round up to the nearest whole peso. We are not operating for profit, but exclusively to change Filipino purchasing behaviors to the extent we can.

Beware Unscrupulous Dive Centers

It has been peak season teaching English, so I have, sadly, been too busy to dive for too long. However, I have had quite a few students try scuba diving and even get certified during their respective stays in the Philippines. This has allowed me to at least talk about scuba diving during my extended surface interval.

While it is understandable that students would seek out the least expensive dive centers, I have discovered that there are some outright dangerous dive centers around. I actively warn my students about these dive centers, but seemingly to no avail. Fortunately, no one has drowned yet. Unfortunately, I think this is merely because luck has been on their side.

Of most concern, is learning to share air with a fellow first-timer. I learned to share air with a professional instructor, who was ready for every eventuality. Consequently, I had a safe experience. Many of my students, however, told me stories of swallowing considerable water because they and their inexperienced partners made mistakes.

Perhaps you could argue that it is good to train with others, because you never know who you might have to share air with in the real world. I agree. However, I would counter-argue that you should practice first with a professional, become comfortable with the exercise first, and then practice with others. The fact that they swallowed considerable water and I swallowed none indicates to me that my training was considerably safer than theirs.

I think the number one sign that you should avoid a dive center is when you see photos of guests molesting marine life. Whether this means removing sea stars from the ocean or agitating pufferfish or whatever, violating the “don’t touch anything” rule is a good sign that they only want your money. And if money is priority one, safety necessarily isn’t.

Trying to Volunteer

I previously blogged that I was trying to volunteer for my city’s weekly environmental cleanup dives: https://scubadivingzero.wordpress.com/2018/06/17/trying-to-volunteer/

Sadly, one month later, I am now convinced that my city does not actually do cleanups at all, whether in the ocean or on land.

I requested — and received — assistance from someone inside the government who personally knows the person who purportedly leads the cleanup dives. With 3 total contacts, plus 2 visits to the corresponding office, there does not seem to have been any dives in over a month, nor are any dives scheduled, not does anyone know when future dives might be scheduled.

In other words, they just ain’t happening. And it’s a damn shame.

Underwater Art

30_dives_in_2018 on Instagram posted this archaeological survey that he did with the Great Lakes Shipwreck Archaeology group. This is the “port bow of an unknown barge about 2 miles off Milwaukee.”

However, I thought it was underwater art.

And, why not? If you are going to take the time to get a perfect photograph, and if you have the skill, why not sketch what you see instead? For that matter, how about embracing the challenge of coloring it in?

I would imagine that scuba diving artists would become proficient enough underwater to sell their works. Plus, you would develop skills that you could use to win money on those “got talent” shows.

Project Aware & 4Ocean

I recently discovered 4Ocean and posted about them on all my social media accounts. They have an innovative way of making a profit by cleaning up our oceans.

And now I see that they have partnered up with Project Aware. I have seen some skepticism about their transparency; how can we be certain that they are really doing as much as they claim to be doing?

It’s a good question.

However, transparency is a challenge with any organization. In my mind, partnering with Project Aware grants legitimacy to the work that 4Ocean is doing. Keep up the good work!

Scuba Diving and Gas Laws

One of the the first things that scuba divers learn is Boyle’s Law. In a nutshell, Boyle’s Law states that pressure and volume are inversely proportional.

This relationship is typically illustrated with a balloon. As you take this theoretical balloon deeper and deeper, the pressure on the gas increases and the volume of the balloon decreases. On your ascent, the pressure on the gas decreases and the balloon gradually returns to its starting volume at the surface.

I have seen this demonstrated with a plastic water bottle. Sadly, these demonstrations involve plastic, whether plastic bottles or plastic balloons. However, my instructor had taken the plastic bottle out of a trash receptacle (improperly discarded) and after our dive I submitted the bottle for recycling.

The bottle was sealed at the surface and brought down to 40 meters (130 feet). My instructor then showed me that the bottle was completely crushed under the pressure, because the gas volume was only 20% of its volume at the surface. Because the bottle was sealed, the shrinking gas volume creates a vacuum, sucking in all sides of the bottle.

He then refilled the bottle with air while still at depth.

When we were back on the boat, the volume of the gas wanted to be 500% of what it was at 40 meters. Because the bottle was sealed, there was a lot of pressure inside the bottle. Suddenly, there was a loud POP, and the cap was off. Fortunately, the bottle was still in my instructor’s buoyancy compensator device (BCD) pocket, so no one was hurt and we didn’t lose the cap in the ocean.

My instructor then handed me the bottle and cap, knowing that I would ensure proper disposal.

If you can find improperly discarded plastic (I hope not), this is a fun experiment to try.

Know Thy Scuba Gear

Scuba divers should know their gear inside and out, as if their lives depend on it. Spoiler alert: it does!

This photo depicts an equipment problem that I have actually seen quite a few times. It is a small, non-serious (in the tropics) air leak. The simple fix is to replace an o-ring, and failure to do so results in a diver wondering why he or she is consuming so much air.

The problem is complacency. Most of the non-professional divers I see are on vacation. The dive center assembles their gear and then the gear waits for them on the boat. They put it on and perform no checks whatsoever.

Yes, it is good to be able to trust the dive center. However, people make mistakes. The person ultimately responsible for your own safety is you.

I rent my gear, but I assemble it myself. I check every release, I check both regulators, and I make sure I can deflate my Buoyancy Control Device (BCD) from every position.

Because I do this, I potentially saved four dives. Twice I had air leaking out of my gauge, and twice I had air leaking from my first stage (the problem pictured above). In all four scenarios, I was able to replace the faulty equipment before leaving the dive center. Perhaps there would’ve been spares on the boats, but that still could’ve unnecessarily delayed the dives.

So I highly recommend that every scuba diver, whether on vacation or not, get to know — and check — your gear so that you can guarantee yourself a safe and fun experience.