For the past 70 years. plastic has made its way into our world and maybe you can’t imagine living without it.

In fact, we produce nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year. But unfortunately, more than 8-million tons of plastic is dumped into our waterways every year. Communications Specialist with Delaware Center for the Inland Bays, Kate Goerger Young, joins us in the studio to tell us about the Annual Inland Bays Clean-Up that took place in June where they picked up a half-ton of trash and many plastic items.

60 volunteers came out to the clean-up day and they found lumber, lost shoes, sunglasses and a lot of plastic – anything from a wrapper to a water bottle. Kate says the concern is that plastic does not breakdown like people would think. Plastic breaks down into micro-plastic, so people may think it’s gone, but according to scientists, it never fully goes away.

Kate says sometimes micro-plastics are so microscopic that plankton can eat them and then it works its way up the ecosystem into fish and larger marine animals and then to us.

Kate gives us recommendations to cut down on plastic use:

• Reusable water bottle
• Reusable tote bag or grocery bag
• Snack bags for dry snacks made from food-grade cloth
• Say no to plastic utensils and use silverware
• Glass straws
• Say no to balloons and balloon releases
• Buy things that are packaged in paper products from the grocery store