“What we need to do is we need to accept responsibility at a local level to reduce the amount of plastic that’s making it’s way down our waterways into the ocean,” says Steve Fleischli, now huffPo blogger and former president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, in the above clip.

Accept responsibility at a local level — it’s a concept heard again and again when discussing the environment. In fact, it’s the one of the basic tenets of the modern green movement, but we can’t remind ourselves of this responsibility enough.

Last Saturday was International Coastal Cleanup Day sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy along with countless other organizations.A grassroots style cleanup like this one is perhaps one of the best examples of people embracing this idea that acting locally can make a huge difference. The Ocean Conservancy’s 2008 cleanup organized 400,000 volunteers and collected 6.8 million pounds of debris, according to their web site.

The event, as you can tell from the video, was much needed although it may be too late to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Dump. Unfortunately, the best we may be able to do now is prevent it from getting worse. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, “marine litter is one of the most pervasive and solvable pollution problems plaguing the world’s ocean and waterways.”

This year, the international cleanup celebrated it’s 25th anniversary, and while Saturday’s collection data is not readily available, it’s safe to assume the event was another success and a big help. But there is more that we can do, says the Ocean Conservancy. They offer 6 recommendations in their 2009 report:

1. Expand public and private sponsorships to monitor and reduce debris. The Ocean Conservancy says that in order to solve the problem, we must work past reduction in waste and aim for zero-waste. This requires the participation of every corporation, organization and person.

2. Fund research on the sources and impact of debris. “Bolstered by information about what these things are, where they originate, and their quantities, we can
work more efficiently and effectively to reduce litter at the source in addition to cleaning up what’s already out there,” the report says.

3. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The Great Pacific Garbage Dump is made up mostly of plastics that could have been recycled. We must continue to think about reducing wasteful packaging and the like and always, always recycling or reusing what we can. Plastic grocery bags were among the most-collected items in 2008’s cleanup — imagine what we could accomplish by eliminating their use all together.

4. Seek better technology. Developing environmentally friendly materials is important to safeguard our oceans and waterways.

5. Support the inclusion of marine protection in climate change initiatives. Governments must include ways to protect the ocean in initiatives to combat climate change, and citizens must demand and support these as well as projects to reduce marine debris.

6. Engage in community efforts like the International Community Cleanup. Get active! Water is our most precious resource, and life in our oceans makes up for 97% of all life on earth. Cleanups really do make a difference — not only by removing debris but by creating community awareness as well.

To read more, you can access the entire report here.

By Amelia Harnish