Sea•thos Foundation

As reported by BBC, plastic water bottle waste is a growing problem around the world and tourism is largely to blame. While traveling abroad, individuals tend to leave their reusable bottle at home and use as many five to six plastic water bottles a day.

Plastic bottles, made of petroleum-based plastic (a non-biodegradable material), are accumulating everywhere- our streets, parks, beaches, rivers, and oceans. This contributes to the existing problem of floating plastic debris in the pacific ocean known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

In effort to combat the plastic waste dilemma, some tourism destinations have “banned the bottle”. In 2010, Italy’s Cinque Terre national park, located along the beautiful Mediterranean coast, banned plastic water bottles. Early this year, the US National Park Service banned the sale of plastic water bottles at Grand Canyon National Park where bottles accounted for 20% of the park’s waste.

Franco Bonanini, president of Italy’s Cinque Terre national park, told London’s Telegraph newspaper 3 million annual tourists are responsible for the park’s waste. “With so many visitors, the footpaths and villages of the Cinque Terre are at risk of being transformed into a great big open-air dustbin,” he said.

Pictured is a water refilling station at Grand Canyon National Park

What you can do
Here are 5 easy steps to reduce your plastic footprint while abroad:

1. Carry your own reusable bottle. Fill it up with fresh water whenever you can.

2. Some eco-friendly hotels offer water-filling stations. If not, some hotels may be willing to boil water for you on request. Check to see what your hotel has to offer.

4. Buy big water containers to keep in your hotel room and refill your bottles. That way you’ll only use one water bottle rather than 5 to 6 a day.

5. You can even treat tap water with your own purification device. Lightweight devices, such as ultraviolet light purifiers, don’t leave an aftertaste.

Happy travels! : )

Sea Turtle Cupcakes

Inspired by Squirt, the Sea turtle from Finding Nemo!

You’ll need:
-Cupcakes
-Frosting
-Sour Peach Gummy ring candies
-Red and green gum drop candies
-Spearmint Leaves candies
-Mini chocolate chips
-Toothpick or kitchen skewer
-Oval fondant cutter

Instructions:
1. Bake cupcakes and frost them

2. For the turtle shell: Place a gummy ring on each cupcake. Slice off the bottom half of a red gum drop and place the top half at the center of the gummy ring. Push the gum drop into the frosting so it will stick.

3. For fins, slice a Spearmint Leaves candy in half. Using a oval fondant cutter, cut each half into two pieces (shown far right). Use the curled pieces for the front fins and the thicker pieces for the hind fins.

4. For the head, poke a hole into the sides of a green gum drop using a toothpick or kitchen skewer. Push mini chocolate chips into the holes for the turtle’s eyes. Use a dab of frosting to hold the eyes in place. Place the head onto the cupcake and slightly push into the frosting so it will stick.

5. All done! Enjoy! : )

The 42nd Anniversary of Earth Day is quickly approaching on April 22, 2012! 

Are you frustrated that governments have not responded quickly or efficiently enough to depleting resources, climate change, species extinction and other pressing environmental issues? If so, Earth Day 2012 is the perfect opportunity to put your PASSION into ACTION!!

This year’s Earth Day aims to “Mobilize the Earth” by providing individuals, communities, and organizations with opportunities to take action into their own hands for a sustainable future.

Visit the Earth Day 2012 website to explore ways to get involved including petitions, Billion Acts of Green (pledges), and community events!

Be sure to check out Seathos’s Act of Green which features a pledge to stop using single-use plastics!

Seathos is excited to announce our very own up coming Earth Day campaign! This year’s theme is “Ten years to save the ocean” featuring the top 5 ocean threats: Over fishing, marine pollution, ocean acidification, climate change, and habitat destruction.

Each topic will be accompanied with colorful pictures, interesting facts, and easy solutions that anyone can put into action. We encourage everyone to enter to win free Seathos stuff, and ”share” and “like” our campaign page!

For every “like” the page receives, Seathos will pick up one pound of trash from the beach!!! So don’t miss out on our upcoming Earth Day campaign and your chance to give the ocean a voice!!!

Seathos is proud to partner with Heather Brown Surf Art and Tru Protection for Heather’s new line of ocean-inspired iPhone cases!

Residing on the North Shore of Oahu and inspired by her love of the islands, surfing and nature, Heather Brown has gained a worldwide reputation for spreading the Aloha spirit. You can check out more of her work on her website.

In partnering with Tru Protection, Heather has crafted three distinct iPhone case designs, each benefiting a different cause. The Double Overhead case directly supports Seathos Foundation with 15% of each purchase being donated. The cases themselves are made out of 100% post-consumer recycled plastic and come packaged in recycled materials!

Give the ocean a voice with every phone call! Head on over to TruProtection.com to order yours today.

For the past couple of weeks Sea•thos has been buzzing about World Water Day 2012! Many people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water. It turns out that protecting the health of our oceans can actually help conserve water and ensure that the whole world will have enough to drink! Here is how:

Water Scarcity

WWD celebrates water and aims to spread awareness about water scarcity

- 884 million (approx. one in eight) people around the world lack access to safe drinking water

-At least 400 million people worldwide live in areas with severe water shortages

-In Africa alone, people (mainly women and children) spend 40 billion hours per year walking to the nearest source of water

Reduce Pollution
By reducing pollution, we can limit the amount of waste entering our marine systems (oceans, rivers, lakes etc.) and ensure the availability of clean drinking water for the whole world:

-3.575 million people, including 1.4 million children, die each year from water-related disease

-About 33% of the toxic contaminants in the ocean are a result of air pollution; 44% are a result of runoff from rivers and streams

-90% of waste water in developing countries is discharged into rivers and streams without any treatment eventually leading to the ocean

Get a reusable water bottle
 By ditching plastic we can reduce marine pollution and conserve water.

-80 to 90% of marine pollution is plastic debris

-It takes about 1.5 gallons of water to make a plastic bottle

-$100 billion is spent on bottled water annually. Just a quarter of that amount would provide access to safe drinking water to the whole planet! (onedrop.org)

Join in the celebration! Visit our World Water Day page to participate, watch videos, and enter to win a free Lifefactory water bottle!

Water is everywhere. Literally, everywhere. It’s above us, in the clouds. It’s underneath us, in the ground, in the soil, in man-made waterways. It’s all around us in rivers, streams and lakes, and in our oceans. Despite being surrounded by it every day, water is something we consistently take for granted. This apathy has led to a worldwide water crisis, the key components being food security, water scarcity and water pollution.

Food Security

We are running out of the water necessary to produce the food we eat. For the approximately 7 billion people on our planet, we consume roughly 2-4 liters of water a day, most of that water coming from the food we eat. Our increased agriculture and accompanying irrigation systems are using water at a rapid clip. For example, it takes 15,000 liters to produce one kilogram of beef and 1,500 liters to produce a single kilogram of wheat.

From UNWater.org: “All the food from crop and livestock production, inland fisheries or aquaculture, forestproducts, requires water. This water comes from rain and moisture stored in soils (green water) or from withdrawals in watercourses, wetlands, lakes and aquifers (blue water). 70% of the blue water withdrawals at global level go to irrigation. Irrigated agriculture represents 20% of the total cultivated land but contributes 40% of the total food produced worldwide.”

In addition to the amount of water-intensive food we rely on, we also waste most of it. Approximately, 30% of food produced worldwide is never eaten, and all of this wasted food used millions of gallons of water to make.

The population is expected to grow to 9 billion by the year 2050. To keep up with the demand of a population that size, food production will need to increase by 70%. According to the Food and Agrictulture Organization of the United Nations, “using scarce natural resources more efficiently and adapting to climate change are the main challenges world agriculture will face in the coming decades.” If we continue relying so heavily on water for our food production, we could be in danger of running out.

The key is cutting back, focusing on the word ‘less‘. If we collectively learn to rely on less water-intensive foods, waste less food, and produce better food using less water we will stop the cycle of using up our water supply for food production, leading to less water scarcity and increased food security.

Check out Seathos’ World Water Day Campaign Page for more information, tweets and videos.