This image made it to me in the last couple days and stopped me in my tracks.

I feel so damn bad when I hold the packaging of an empty food container and cannot find a recycling sign on it. The resources and ecological cost of creating these containers make my mind ache enough without imagining it being tossed on a mountain of other land fill, and then created again at the same cost. Not that recycling is anywhere as efficient as it needs to be to be sustainable in many major centers but that is a different story.

With all the landfills overflowing with the stuff we haven't the ability or interest to recycle, how the hell is the ocean collecting all the plastic? Well it is research time and, an old school player has the answer. https://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/story/how-does-plastic-end-up-in-the-ocean/ The quick list is:

• 9% of the plastic created has ever been recycled. BOO!
• People on holiday by the ocean side are just leaving garbage and plastic there......seriously?
• When plastic is being transported to land fill or recycling, it is simply being blown out of the truck, into running water and making its way to the ocean.
• Microbeads - Seriously little bits of plastic in your facial scrub is a good thing? Why has this not been banned globally yet?
• Lax industrial control - It takes money to inspect the corporations that are washing plastics down the drain (poor production processes and irresponsible waste control) and increases the expenses they will incur to do it properly, reducing their profit and the taxes paid back to governments. So the corporate criminals don't care, and the fox guarding the hen-house doesn't either.

Source: popinnow.com

I have conditioned myself to linger less on the problem itself, divert energy into thinking of the solution, and being driven enough to become the change I would seek if even in the smallest way to start. I also encourage others I deal with on a daily basis (partners, team members, family) to do the same and try to stop short of preachy.

Ban Plastic Bags

A solution closer to home is to support the Ban the Bag movement. EDIT: http://www.bagtheban.com/ is a bullshit site calling for no bag ban. Hit https://spark.greenpeace.org.au/efforts/ban-the-bag-1 instead. Seriously we can get inexpensive reusable bags, support stores that use paper, or keep bins or boxes handy if our consumerism exceeds a couple handfuls of goods. Besides that, those noble grocery chains that charge you for the bags you use are just pocketing the profits and not even contributing anything back to global sustainability. Lets ban these bags everywhere.

Don't buy single use containers

Getting a whole case of water bottles is the bane of the first world. Water sellers like Nestle suck the water tables dry in any municipality greedy enough to sell it for profit. Then, they bottle that in containers that require such destructive and unsustainable process that we should be sick to our stomachs from much more than the plastic byproducts leached into the water. Start with not buying bottled water and see where that takes you.

Manufacturing/distribution control

The containers the manufacturers or distributors use to get the products to us need to be recyclable. It is so tough to limit what we buy to eat based upon the packaging it comes in but we have to at least slowly build some discipline. From there, we can collectively force the suppliers to change their ways to cater to public demand, and put pressure on our governmental representative to make this a priority in any way we can. Look at this shit that piles up in our land fills and stays there longer than we live!

Crypto and Blockchain

Check out some of these block chain platforms and applications that are striving to help correct this trend. Be sure to practice diligence and confirm they are legitimate and sustainable and not run by crooks with good marketing departments. Seek out the block chain solutions and support the ones that are doing the right thing.

• https://www.ecocoin.com/ - Develop eco-friendly habits, be rewarded in crypto, spend crypto in eco friendly ways
• https://www.plasticbank.org/ - Aiming to help solve the plastic AND poverty problem?
• https://www.bcdc.online/recycletocoin - A more urban solution to reward recycling from old skool recyclers?
• https://www.etondigital.com/blockchain-startups-transform-environment/ - Check out some of these other environmentally friendly block chain startups.

This is just scratching the scratch of the surface. Been weighing on my mind though and the first step of the race is the most important.

Educate us! What have you found to share in the common cause of slowing the destruction of the planet with crypto/block chain?