THE WHOLE "I dOn'T uSe sTRaWS tO hELP tUrTLES" THING

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The entire movement to stop using straws (I believe this happened in 2015, but forgive me if I am wrong) began because of this video that surfaced of a turtle getting a plastic straw stuck in its nose and having to get it removed to free up its air space.

This was an incredibly tragic thing to happen to this poor creature, and I cry every time that I watch the video. It is absolutely heartbreaking. But what happened next is too.

After this, people started to care about what was going into the ocean and started using reusable straws, no straws, or just paper straws! Which is great, I personally don't use straws either! I think it's definitely great to do, but if that's all you're doing for the environment, then I'm sorry, but you're not doing much. if you really want to save the turtles along with so many other wonderful creatures, I'm gonna need you to do more than to give up your pretty pink umbrella straw in your Pina colada.

There are up to 8.3 billion plastic straws scattered on global coastlines, and even if all those straws got washed into the sea, they would only account for .03% of the 8 million metric tons of plastic estimated to enter the ocean in a given year.

So with this information, one can conclude that while not using straws is great for the rare possibility that it will make its way into a sea turtles nose, that's just not very likely. Sure, straws are everywhere, I'm not denying that, but it's not our biggest issue that we should be fighting at the moment.

Why aren't we talking about the plastic fork that got caught in a sea turtles nose? Did you know that every year, 6 million tons of nondurable plastics, like spoons, forks, and knives are discarded? Putting around 700 marine species in danger of extinction? And for what? We could just as easily use an actual and reusable fork. It doesn't matter the situation. Cookout? You can pack up your real utensils and take them back home. Camp out? Same thing. If you're even at freaking Cook Out you can just tell them not to give you a plastic fork with your meal, and bring your own or keep one in the car. I don't care if it looks weird, I would rather you look weird than have a straw ripped out of another turtles nose. It doesn't matter the occasion, just don't use them.

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HOW YOU CAN HELP THE TURTLES IN AN EFFICIENT WAY

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- Turn Out lights visible from the beach!
Sea turtle hatchlings use light from the moon to guide their way to the water at night, and artificial light can often confuse the little guys. This can also discourage adult turtles from nesting on the beach. So just by turning off your lights on the beach, you're doing great already!

-Reduce the amount of garbage you see on the beach!
This one kinda applies not only to sea turtles, but it helps everything. Other marine life, our community, it's beneficial to all! Please start cleaning up your beaches, parks, everything! We need it! Recycling is an amazing thing to do too, and if you continue to read, towards the end I will explain on what to recycle/ how to properly recycle!

-Be aware of sea turtle nesting areas!
If you see a sea turtles nesting area, then do not touch it! You could accidentally hurt the hatchlings, or disturb their, or their mothers' peace.

-Reduce the number of chemicals you use!
The chemicals you use for everything, cleaning, plant care, etc, can actually wash up into the waters, so it is very important that we start to dispose of these chemicals in the proper way! Or even better, start purchasing and using biodegradable solutions!

-Do not construct bonfires on the beach!
This goes back to the light thing, the turtles follow the moonlight to find their way back to the water, so if you light a bonfire, it'd be pretty easy to confuse a bonfire for the moon, and in some cases the sea turtles did just that, and as we can probably guess, the outcome wasn't great.

-Volunteer!
I cannot stress this enough! Volunteer for anything, beach cleanups, park cleanups, adopt a highway, volunteer at your local thrift store, anything! But when it comes to sea turtles, we really need to be volunteering at the beach. And though some may not have easy access to one, it is very important that we're still doing everything that we can to help clean up our earth!

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