Short Cast: Garbage

0:00Predictions suggest a buildup of about 80,000 tons of plastic in the Great Pacific garbage patch between California and Hawaii. This figure is up to 16 times higher than previously reported. Waste accumulates in five ocean areas, the largest one being the patch I just referenced between Hawaii and California, but there's four other ones, And that encompasses an area of approximately 1.6 million square kilometers. In those areas, there's an estimated 1.8 trillion bits of plastic. A lot of them very large, some of them are a little bit smaller. So these are some of the facts that I gathered here from a BBC article that I read last night. right after I got to my hotel room from a fly fishing event in a small town in southern United States where there's about 250 people get together for a banquet and it broke my heart because during the dinner I had been noticing just how much plastic was being wasted I mean we're all aware of how much plastic consumption we have and pretty much how bad that is for the environment But this is a gathering of fly anglers, a lot of them very ecologically conscious.

1:23And at this event, all the attendees were served or had the option of having a single-serve disposable bottle of water served to them. And their plates were all styrofoam, which is essentially plastic, something that doesn't break down. And I was watching this and it was just getting really, really brokenhearted because there we are. You know, we are fly anglers. We're supposed to know a little bit better. We're supposed to see the effects of all the consumption, all the waste that we have on the environment where we inhabit. And as a matter of fact, that's probably one of the most important driving forces behind me starting Tenkara USA. say, I really bought into the idea that if we get more people to fly fish, those people are going to pay more attention to their environment. If you love it, you protect it, as they say. I expected that people that fly fish will notice the amount of plastic, really, a lot of times, plastic bottles that are lined up on the shores of their streams and lakes, because let's face it, I mean, pretty much every stream, a river, a lake is going to have some amount of trash. And I started in Cariose thinking I could introduce more people to fly fishing and therefore more of those people are going to pay attention to the environment. But unfortunately, I really think we have failed.

2:47You know, I don't know if that's true anymore. I don't know if that was ever true, that people are going to pay more attention to the environment. There's just not that much of a conscience a lot of times, and it's really heartbreaking. And the reason I wanted to do this podcast today is because I experienced that a few weeks ago, fishing with a guide, as I have done many times before, and we show up, you know, in a fishing destination, and the well-intentioned guide usually has a cooler full of ice and a lot of different options for beverages, oftentimes plastic water bottles or sodas and that kind of thing. And I've just kind of thought back about a lot of different events that I've been to and fly fishing and conservation aspect of it. And I've noticed that we're just not doing enough. And I wanted to do a little podcast here just urging us to be a little bit more conscientious of all the waste that we're generating.

3:50I don't think for a minute that any of the organizers are, you know, of different events or guides are being bad, they have bad intentions. I think a lot of times is that we just don't think too much about the impact of the waste that we're generating as in the environment where we're fishing. But all this plastic goes somewhere. And sure, we can feel good about some of it getting recycled, but inevitably some of it will fly off with the wind, will end up in streams, will go downstream, it's not going to get recycled. And even if it does, there's a very deep environmental cost to all of this. So essentially, just to kind of keep it short, I wanted to kind of make an appeal here. Each one of the episodes of the Tenkara Cast has over 3,000 listeners, and the number grows as people discover the podcast. and a lot of times we're going out on our own outings we can definitely be conscientious of what we are carrying with us i haven't bought a water bottle in years now um you know it's i'm very good about carrying a reusable water bottle that i just fill up luckily in the united states we have access to very good tap water now we can just fill it up at various locations without a problem. Even if not, I usually like to have a big jug of water, you know, like oftentimes refill one at home before I go on camping trips and that kind of thing. But there's a lot of easy steps that we can take to reduce at least a little bit of our waste. I think, you know, we as anglers can do way better than what we're doing, especially when we're talking about a fly fishing event, which by definition should probably have a little bit of a conservation aspect to it.

5:37So, a few little simple steps that we can take starting today with almost no extra cost. Definitely no additional cost to what is being generated or the impact on our environment. For one, reusable bottles or cups and that kind of thing. If you're a guide, put on the list of items that your client should have with them. Usually, they'll have a little bit of a list of what to bring. Sunscreen, sunglasses. is add on the reusable water bottle. That's a very easy step. If they don't have one, sell them one. They're $10 or less, and you can buy a reusable water bottle. And as a guide, you can bring a big jug of water. I usually have like a four-gallon jug that I fill up. Worst case scenario, not ideal, but you can always buy like a two-and-a-half-gallon jug at a market. They're very inexpensive. They use much less plastic. That's always an option. So bring a reusable bottle wherever you go.

6:39Use that up instead of using or taking up another plastic bottle. If you're part of any kind of event planning, whether it's fly fishing or not, do consider the impact of those water bottles that are being distributed. Oftentimes nowadays they're so cheap because they don't cost much for the manufacturers to make them. But there's a cost to it. I mean, yes, you might be paying 50 cents a bottle, but there's all the extra extraneous cost that we might not see. And that's the cost of getting that thing recycled or the cost of dealing with all the waste that's ending up in the garbage patches of the world. So consider spending a little bit more if you need to. I don't think you will, but bring in some jugs of water for your event. You can put jugs in the middle of the table or have a few disposing jugs on corners of the room or whatever it takes. But bring in some reusable cups or bottles and get people to fill up their bottles.

7:43They don't need to have a bottle to use. The other thing, too, a lot of straws. Not at this particular event, but people use straws. and just consider having a glass straw if you really must use one, or just don't open it. It's okay to drink from a cup. I've been drinking from cups without a straw for years and never gotten sick from one. So that's just an option. I mean, those are just easy hanging, like low-hanging fruit. That's just very easy little steps to take. At the event that I went to, the plates were styrofoam, which is plastic. It doesn't break down. It really damages the environment in a lot of ways because they'll break down into smaller pieces. They'll be eaten by wildlife and so forth, and they just pollute. Consider having some compostable plates and silverware at your event. Nowadays, we've had tremendous advances in the options that we have out in the marketplace. We have compostable plates.

8:46There's compostable, even straws and plastic cups that are compostable better than, not ideal but much better than having just pure styrofoam and plastic. So, you know, if cost is a concern, consider increasing the price of your admission fee or your banquet fee by 50 cents or something. It's not going to cost nearly that much to have the better quality plates, the compostable plates and cups. Ideally, we'll have reusable ones, but I understand some of the constraints. If you can't, at least think about the materials that are being used. I'd love to see more paper plates. as opposed to styrofoam or plastic. So that's my soapbox. I mean, at Tancario Say, I feel like we can do better still. Most of our packaging is paper. For years, I've tried to figure out ways to get away from plastic as much as we can. So our packaging, we usually use paper, like our vials, our little glass vials, instead of plastic cups and cork, natural material, stuff that can be recycled very easily and doesn't end up in the environment in the same way as plastics. We do have a few things that we can probably do better, like our rod cases currently are packaged with some plastic in order to prevent scratching. I'm going to take a look right after this podcast and see what other options I have. What else can we use in order to reduce our plastic consumption? But again, I think we can do much better at walking the walk here. You know, we talk, we talk the talk and I'd like to see more of us walking the walk.

10:23I think sometimes it comes down just to being aware that that's an actual thing. As I mentioned, the event planners are not, you know, being me about their choices, but nobody took the time to point it out to them. So if you are part of an event planning committee at a fly fishing club, next time, just raise your hand and say, hey, can we make sure that we have compostable plates or reusable plates as opposed to something like styrofoam or plastic plates and that it's small difference but it will make a difference because you know like i was looking at the event a couple hundred people like 250 people or so i would imagine everybody probably or a lot of people probably got a couple of bottles let's say 300 bottles of water were chugged and wasted at the under this very small event in a very small town, you know, within one of the states, you know, in the United States. So if you kind of multiply that one event by a bunch of others and other types of events, I mean, that's an incredibly staggering amount of plastic that is being generated.

11:28That doesn't have to be. 300 bottles of plastic, that's a lot for a couple hours of indulging in something that should be a little bit more ecologically friendly or conscientious at least. So, you know, I don't mean to be, hopefully I'm not being a hypocritical person, trying to do better. I think that's where it all starts, just by us being aware of it and trying to do better. I really appreciate you guys listening to it. I will so much appreciate if next time you tell your guide, It's like, hey, have you considered just bringing some reusable bottles for your clients or suggesting that we bring it? Or next time you're part of an event planning committee of sorts, I would really appreciate if you raise your hand and just suggest that you guys have environmentally friendly products. Or just reduce the number of items that are being used, period.

12:29I appreciate you guys listening. Thanks so much for being part of this Think Out of Cast. and let's work better to better the environment where we live. Thank you.