In August 2021, Only One is partnering with two organizations working to address the plastic pollution crisis and making an impact in different parts of the world: Azul and Marea Verde.
Azul is the only U.S. organization entirely focused on elevating Latinx voices in ocean and coastal resource protection. They played a leading role in passing California’s plastic bag ban — the first such statewide ban in the country.
Marea Verde is a Panama-based nonprofit organization that works to prevent plastic waste from flowing into the Bay of Panama — they have succeeded in stopping more than 40 tons of plastic waste in its tracks and cleaning up 350 tons of trash in mangrove forests to date.
Video by Cedric Carrere
More about Azul
The plastics crisis cannot be addressed without an understanding of how its affects marginalized groups that have historically been left out of mainstream ocean conservation efforts.
As part of coalitions like Break Free From Plastic and Clean Seas, Azul participates in efforts to curb plastic pollution at the local (Los Angeles), state (California), national (U.S.), and international levels. As a member of the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Expert Group on Marine Litter and Microplastics (established by the UN Environment Programme), they are working tirelessly to realize the creation and implementation of a legally binding global plastics treaty.
Azul makes recommendations to governments, consumers, businesses, and nonprofit organizations designed to lessen the impact of plastic pollution on vulnerable populations. Among these recommendations is the critical need to move toward an environmental conservation movement that prioritizes those disproportionately affected by pollution around the world.
Funds from Only One will enable Azul to produce more vital public information materials on the global plastics treaty — in both English and Spanish — and boost their in-person and digital outreach to groups that have historically been excluded from these efforts.
Project impact
>10 tons of plastic waste will be prevented from flowing into the Pacific Ocean every year
1 trash barrier will be installed to divert solid waste into an onsite plastic processing facility
5 workshops on circular economies will be conducted, benefitting nearby communities and helping reduce marine litter generated inland
10 members of the local community will receive employment opportunities at the facility
Why stopping plastic pollution at the source matters
The general public is continuously told to be mindful of their plastic waste and to recycle. Meanwhile, the U.S. plastics industry is making more than $400 billion every year, and with the world slowly weaning itself off fossil fuels, there are projections that some oil companies will shift their attention to producing more plastics.
Nearly every single piece of plastic that enters the environment and damages human health comes from oil and gas.
In order to stop the harm being done by plastic waste, immediate action to tackle plastic pollution at the source — by divesting from fracking, offshore drilling, and the use of oil pipelines — is imperative.
More about Marea Verde
Since 2017, Marea Verde has installed plastic waste barriers, paved roads made of asphalt mixed with recovered plastic, and recovered plastic and other solid waste from vulnerable mangrove ecosystems along the Matías Hernández River in Panama. In total, they helped remove 100 tons of solid waste (about 50 percent of which was plastic) from rivers and therefore stop it from flowing into the ocean and collected more than 350 tons of trash that had accumulated in mangrove forests and other coastal areas near Panama City.
This year, Marea Verde is launching a new project to reduce the volume of plastic waste that ends up in the Tapia and Juan Díaz Rivers and run community workshops designed to propel the creation of a circular economy around the Bay of Panama.
This project has three components: engineering resulting in the installation of a floating solid waste capture device; research seeking to understand the full scope of solid waste in the region (from the waste disposal behavior of residents to the microplastics generated by waste); and direct outreach work with local communities. This last component aims to build capacity and empower the communities of Don Bosco, Juan Díaz, and neighboring communities to monetize the plastic waste collected from nearby rivers.
