The Vancouver Aquarium has discontinued the sale of single-use plastic water bottles in a bid to cut down on the tonnes of marine debris that ends up in our oceans each year.
A giant wave created with several thousand empty water bottles has been set up outside its Ocean Wise Art Atrium as a visual demonstration of how many bottles would be typically sold at its café from September to November – just a three month period. Approximatey 37,000 bottles were sold each year, the aquarium said.
"Those aren't busy months for us. You could imagine the size of the wave if we looked at an entire year," said vice-president Dolf Dejong.
About eight million metric tonnes of plastic ends up in oceans every year, says Dejong, adding that the debris is potentially deadly to marine wildlife if it is ingested.
"Wildlife are mistaking it for food, it's becoming caught up in their digestive tracts, and it's creating real problems. It's also doing significant damage to our oceans," he said.
For their next visit, the aquarium is encouraging patrons to BYOB: Bring your own bottle. Four new water fountains have been installed in its galleries, and an additional water fountain will be installed for Stanley Park and Aquarium visitors through a partnership with the city.
It's believed the aquarium is the first zoo or aquarium in Canada to discontinue the sale of plastic water bottles. It has already removed other plastic items from its café, including cutlery, cup lids and plastic straws.
Through its Ocean Pollution Research Program, the aquarium has been studying the effects of plastic on the marine environment.
Dr. Peter Ross says that plastic water bottles never fully break down, and instead break down into smaller fragments called microplastics.
The danger is that the microplastics are ingested by zooplankton, at the very bottom of the food chain, and make their way into larger animals, like salmon, and eventually end up in predators, like whales.
Ross' research suggests that a humpback whale feeding off of these microscopic creatures could ingest up to 300,000 microplastic particles every single day.
CEO John Nightingale is encouraging other organizations to join them in their pursuit of becoming zero waste, for the sake of the oceans.
"There is enough plastic in the ocean to cover every metre of world’s coastlines," he said.
"There is great power in numbers, and we all have a duty to ensure our practices and choices are sustainable and contributing to the health of our planet.”
