The World is on Track to Triple Ocean Plastic Pollution by 2040. If we can make some changes and educate people NOW maybe we can leave a legacy for our future generations...

To encourage our city to do more to clean and protect our beaches and waterways. We need more people walking the beaches every morning picking up trash. We need to BAN single use plastic, such as, but not limited to Plastic Bags, Plastic Cups, Single UsePlastic Food containers and utensils...etc... To educate the Population the dangers of plastics entering our waterways and the correct disposal of trash and leaving trash on, or near the beach will NOT be acceptable behavior. To educate the tourists who visit Miami Beach to only leave their foot prints on the sand and be responsible and take their trash with them as they leave the beach.

We would like the Hotels to help to educate the tourists on the importance of taking and disposing of their trash correctly when they leave the beach. This can be done by placing flyers in each guest room and using the Hotel infomercial that steams on every TV in each guest room.

To work with the local schools and educate our younger generations the importance of taking all trash home, or disposing of it correctly in trash cans and other approved locations. If we can educate our younger generations they will in turn educate others.

Last week, the journal Science published an article by our colleagues at The Pew Charitable Trusts and SYSTEMIQ modeling various plastics pollution scenarios over the next 20 years. The results were alarming. According to the study, if we continue to produce, consume and dispose of plastics at our current rate, we will see a nearly threefold increase in plastics entering aquatic systems from land by 2040.

Even more troubling, they found that current commitments by the private sector and world governments to reduce the amount of plastic entering our ocean and waterways are not nearly enough. If society implements all of these current commitments to reduce plastic pollution, we only stem the flow by 7%—which at our business-as-usual (BAU) rate would mean 29 million metric tons of plastic flowing into the ocean by 2040, and a cumulative plastic stock of 600 million metric tons in the marine environment.

We plan on submitting this petition to the Miami Beach City Management to demonstrate that there is the will from the people to make changes.