30. Environmental Awareness For Scuba Divers
What can we do to reduce the impact of diving on underwater environment?
We divers love the sea, the beautiful and healthy flora and fauna. But as we travel and dive we have an impact on them. Many of us thinks about this problem. Some divers think we can't do anything but that isn't true. Even the smallest thing matters- if all of us would keep this in mind, we could reach our goals. Our company, the Spark Lights always emphasised the importance of environmental protection and marine conservation and we encourage all divers to work together.
To start with the most important thing: we are sure everybody knows we mustn't throw plastic garbage to the water. If we want to reduce the amount of garbage, we should use less plastic bags. When we pack our bags, choose something else instead of non degradable bags and if we take any of them abroad, bring them home as well.
Don't use the disposable plastic cups, bring your own ones. When you go to a local store, use less bags and instead of wrapped snacks choose something else. It's important if the cosmetics we use are environmentally friendly. In several places they banned sun lotions which contain chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate in an effort to protect the coral reefs from further chemical damage. When you buy one check the components and choose an eco friendly even when you travel to a country where they haven't banned any sun creams yet.
Pick up the garbage you find even if it was thrown away by somebody else. If you see plastic waste underwater, you can pick it up too or put in the pocket of your BCD. Some divers take a trash mash bag for the garbage. These plastic pollutants shouldn't be in the sea! If we do this regularly, our dive buddies will do the same and they will collect the floating or drifting plastic garbage too.
We encourage everybody to join underwater cleanups. If you think it's a silly idea to waste your valuable time during your holiday with collecting garbage you're wrong. You'll notice you and the other divers who think the same way and care about the environment can do a lot even if you work for only 1-2 hours. As during underwater cleanups you spend the whole time with collecting garbage even a single diver can fill a bag with those. The divers together can remove larger pieces of trash which you surely couldn't pick up during an ordinary dive. Volunteering can be fun and later this kind of cleanup dive will be as memorable as all other diving experiences.
When we talk about the scuba diving equipments, we can think about the environmentally friendly products as well. We shouldn't buy new equipment regularly when we have a bit worn piece. Sometimes instead of buying a new one a servicing is enough and you don't produce garbage by throwing away your old equipment.
The electric devices can be even more polluting. Our company, Spark Lights always try to design environmentally friendly products. We use rechargeable batteries in the Spark Action Light dive lamps and underwater video lights because we know how polluting are the disposable batteries. We make reliable dive lights to use for many years.
Certainly many other manufacturers think the same way and design reliable dive lights. When you want to buy a dive light we recommend to choose the environmental friendly ones. Maybe the better, rechargeable underwater lights seem a bit more expensive but they are better for you and the environment as well. It's not a good idea to buy a cheap one and threw away after a dive trip and buy a similar unreliable dive light because it doesn't cost too much.
If we divers don't care about the underwater environment, the pollution, why those would care about who don't see the harmful human impact underwater by themselves? And don't forget, how embarassing can be a flooded "waterproof" light or the cheap one which isn't suitable for underwater videography at all. Maybe it seems affordable for the first sight but it can be garbage very soon. When you throw away you should think about the fate of the plastic parts or the pollution caused by flooded batteries.
We are all responsible for protecting the marine environment. Feel the importance of taking care of it to keep healthy so the next generations can enjoy the beauty of the underwater world too!
2019.03.26