Dive Against Debris
Every year tens of thousands of marine animals and seabirds die from eating or getting tangled up in marine debris (trash) in the ocean. This debris also damages habitats, makes coastal areas unattractive to visit and is expensive (and possibly dangerous) to remove. It's estimated that approximately 70% of trash that enters the ocean will sink to the seafloor and only trained scuba divers have the ability to tackle and remove this debris.
There is much that we can do to help with this issue and EVERY small adjustment we make will help.
Limit your use of plastic: Over 300 million (300,000,000!) tonnes of plastic is produced every year and over half of this is for single use only. More than 8 million tonnes is dumped in our ocean annually. Every piece of plastic that has been produced is still in existence. It will take 400+ years for it to decompose. Refuse to use single use plastic whenever possible.
Red Sail Sports use a vegetable based plastic for our drinking cups on board all of our vessels. We encourage our guests to bring refillable bottles on board but if you do use our cups we also encourage you to place them in the trash after use. We recognise that out on the ocean the wind can blow these cups overboard, and if this happens they will biodegrade on the reef over a few months.
Bin it don't leave it! Please ensure that any trash you have on a boat or on the beach is placed in a bag and taken with you when you leave. There are recycling bins on our island for plastic, aluminium, paper, glass etc. Organic waste can be safely disposed of at home. Did you know that it can take 2 years for orange peel to break down in the ocean?
If you are a certified diver please ask us about the PADI Project AWARE Dive Against Debris certification. Learn how to organise and conduct a clean-up dive, how to catalogue and register any debris you bring to the surface and, most importantly, how to do this safely without any risk to yourself or damage to the reef. Not all debris is the size of a soda can.
You don't have to be a certified diver to help clean-up efforts. Red Sail Sports and Plastic-Free Cayman are happy to announce that we are joining forces to rid our islands of plastic waste. Our teams will be holding monthly beach clean-ups and Red Sail are also re-evaluating our plastic consumption throughout our entire company.
Join us on 1 October for our next event - see our Facebook page for details.
Plastic-Free Cayman is a newly formed non-profit group with a mission to reduce plastic waste in Cayman and our surrounding oceans. For more information please visit their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/plasticfreecayman/
Please contact dive@redsailcayman.com for more information about Dive Against Debris.
