Plastic-free campaign in the Galapagos Islands

The Galapagos Islands Description are very important to the environment because there are many endemic species living in there. The flora and the fauna of the Archipelago that you can enjoy on board any of our Galapagos Islands cruises are mostly pretty unique and cannot be found elsewhere in the world. For these reasons the ecosystem of the Galapagos Islands must be preserved to avoid that they suffer any change because of human actions.

This year, the Galapagos Government Council, have joined the environmental initiative the Earth Hour with a program that aims to reduce and ban plastic shopping bags, as a way to protect the variety of wildlife both on land and in the waters of the Galapagos.

No more plastic-bags, please!

The free-bags campaign in Ecuador aims to reduce and eventually ban the use of plastic bags and disposable cups in the Islands, where, according to some studies, 4 million plastic bags are used every year.

The good news is that most people are willing to support the campaign to reduce the plastic bags. One the plans the Government has to start this campaign is putting a value to these plastic bags in the shops in an attempt to discourage people to use them. Also, another plan is to encourage locals to use reusable cloth or jute bags for their purchases. So, if you are taking any of our Galapagos Islands cruises consider to avoid using this plastic bags and use reusable ones.

The Government has invited people to reflect and be aware about the harm of this contaminating material on marine life that consume these products and suffer severe damage to their health.

Did you know that…?

Plastic bags are one of the main causes of pollution of the sea. It has been said that 80 percent of the plastic bags do not come from the sea, that is, they are not thrown overboard from ships, but thrown on the beach by tourists and coastal dwellers. Also, many of them travel through rivers or are transported by the wind. Especially thinner plastic bags, which are generally discarded immediately after the first use, are transported by the wind over long distances.

In an ecosystem as the one you can appreciate on board of our in the Galapagos Islands cruises, the main concern about the use of plastic bags is their effect on marine species because turtles, birds, iguanas and other animals often get confused and eat them, and this can be fatal. Also, the estimated time of decomposition of plastic bags is 500 years.

You can help to preserve the islands!

Plastic bags have caused the death of several species because they eat them or they even get caught in the rings of the packages. However we can all reduce these incidents and join the Earth Hour Ecuador and together change this reality.

If we all help a little, we can all together preserve the Islands, and in this case one the things you can do is to use cloth bags instead of plastic ones to help to save many marine animals and all the environment.

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