Wake-Up Wednesday Wins! (Round II)
Hello dear readers, and happy Wednesday! It’s time to Wake-Up for some wins on this Wednesday. If you read my last post, you’ll know that this is a new thing I’m into: sharing “good news highlights” from around the Internet. What I failed to mention was the focus of these “wins” and that, simply, is ocean health. As in, things people are doing and saying, initiatives that are being organized, or products being created that lend support to our oceans…you know, the thing keeping us breathing!
Narrowing the Focus: Ocean Health
For me it comes down to one thing: our blue planet. It’s all about that salty blue liquid keeping us alive, and the wins that are keeping that place healthy and vibrant.
For the most part, I will curate my Wednesday Wins around a topic near and dear to my heart: plastic pollution. Of course, plastic is a sticky, complicated issue so you may also see food wins, climate wins, animal wins…because it’s all related to ocean health and I can’t help it. With that dear readers, I invite you to snuggle up to a warm cuppa somethin’ and enjoy this week’s wins!
Fresh Is Best
This company is showing us all that convenience doesn’t have to come at the cost of our planet, by promoting healthy eating and sustainable packaging! Yum! Who wants one of these fresh vending machines in their city?!
What’s Your Fashion Footprint?
Now more than ever, it is important to reduce our consumption of basically everything, particularly our clothing. Clothing? Plastic? What’s the connection? Read this. You might ask: how can I make a change if don’t even know what my own impact is?? Well, listen: one company took it upon themselves to do the math for us and came up with a handy calculator. It is incroyable and so fun: you will enjoy discovering your fashion footprint, even if it’s large and smelly. Hop to it!
Thrifted Threads with Purpose
Speaking of fashion footprints, it was around the same time I was going gaga over that calculator that a few local Okanagan businesses were putting their heads together on a project that I think is just so RAD! A full blog on this coming soon but the gist: thoughtfully curated, thrifted threads find new life with fresh messages. Do Less, Be More, indeed!
“Nu” Kids On the Block
This a local-to-me-in-Kelowna success story about bags. What modern-day ocean-lover doesn’t love a good plastic-free product? I know, I know – we should all be buying less. But mesh bags!! Nu Bags is making waves in the local Okanagan community and I love it. Especially since a) I found their bags at the local corner grocery store and b) they put their display smack dab in the front of the store. It’s time to bag the plastic habit already, people!
Watts In Maine?
Glad you asked: lots of cool people and awesome messages (and a heart-achingly beautiful coastline). This one is more of a shout-out to the awesome humans you bump into on the Internet: Kylie at Watts In Maine, you are one of those awesome humans. She shared a great illustration of our plastic pollution crisis, courtesy of this artist, which resulted in a great little conversation about how grateful we are to have humans out there who cheer us on. Plastic, bringing people together – whodathunkit?
Better Hair Solutions, Bar-None
Another Okanagan-based win, this time in the form of plastic-free hair-care: shampoo bars! No longer a novelty item, shampoo bars are seemingly becoming more and more mainstream and I just love it. They are travel-ready, easy-to-use, virtually waste-free (if done right!) and frankly, so simple!! To use, that is; to make them seems complicated which is why I love that there are local companies like The High-End Hippie and Bottle None crafting salon-quality products for us plastic-avoiding hippies to use. Hair-bout that?
Zero Waste Refillery Hits the Tropics
As with shampoo bars, zero-waste refillery shops are popping up hither and yon! This one recently came across my eyeballs and it’s based in one of my favourite places: Hawaii (specifically, Oahu). It looks like they are in the process of applying for a brick and mortar shop in Honolulu, coming 2020. I know air travel is carbon intensive, but don’t you kind of want to check this place out? #refillrevolution O:-)
Global Tourism Tackles Plastic
When the UN World Tourism Organization, UN Environment Programme, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and the New Plastics Economy say something, you listen and you listen good: they recently announced a Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, targeted at…you guessed it, the global tourism industry. If you’ve ever traveled, you may not be surprised to learn that roughly 80% of all tourism takes place in coastal areas, meaning any and all plastic waste escaping the hands of errant (or even conscious) tourists has that much higher chance of ending up in…that’s right, the ocean. It is high-tide (I mean time) that the industry band together to keep our seas free of debris.
“The Global Tourism Plastics Initiative unites the tourism sector behind a common vision to address the root causes of plastic pollution. It enables businesses, governments, and other tourism stakeholders to take concerted action, leading by example in the shift towards circularity in the use of plastics.”
One Planet Network
Community-Sourced Coffee Solutions
Major Internet win here and a stand-alone blog with the full story dropping this week but for now, the Cliffnotes version: I sought a reusable coffee filter for my household and thanks to some good ‘ole Instagram crowd-sourcing, I found one – made in Canada from sustainably grown cotton and hemp; purchased at a local zero-waste small business. Thank you friends!
And that’s a wrap on this Wake-Up Wednesday Wins! Are you awake? Inspired? Think you’ve made the connection between all these wins and ocean health?? If you answered yes to all three, let me know in the comments what rang true for you (and so I can give you a virtual high-five)!
Have a great rest of your week, and thanks for reading!
