We thought you would be as interested as we were to hear about "ghost fishing", which has become of huge importance in our oceans. The Marine Stewardship Council gives frightening figures of around 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear that is lost or abandoned at sea, accounting for about 10% of all marine debris.
(Photo credit: Ghost Fishing UK)
Each large, commercial net can kill up to 500,000 marine invertebrates. A shocking number.
In the UK, a charity called Ghost Fishing UK is dedicated to removing this deadly waste and over 100 scuba divers have been specially trained to carry out this work. You can read more about their extraordinary work here.
This is not the place to show you horrific pictures of the precious turtles from the Caribbean waters that have become victims to the nets, or other marine debris, but on World Oceans Day (June 8th 2022) we wanted to show our solidarity with those whose mission is to clean up the oceans.
In a small way we are trying to help and now our swim shorts are made from a blend of Repreve® fabric. Repreve® is made from recycled plastic bottles that are saved from landfill and we know that much rubbish is transported via our oceans to landfills in other countries. 80% of plastic in the ocean originates from land according to the WWF, whether this is as it blows off enormous cargo ships carrying landfill, or if it has started as one item of litter that has fallen into a drain and eventually been carried into the ocean.
So far Repreve® has recyled over 33,000,000,000 bottles. Staggering. Our small collections of swim shorts will not change the world's oceans by itself, but if we all do a little to help, we can hopefully make huge dents in the amount of rubbish that is endangering marine life.
In the meantime, we are following the progress of the turtles who return to Mustique for many years to lay their eggs and hope to bring you positive news of their hatchlings very soon.
Happy World Oceans Day everyone!
