The gargantuan amount of plastic waste in our oceans is something that should concern all anglers, and indeed all of the marine industry. Executive Editor Chris Woodward talks with two women — Lia Colabello from Costa Sunglasses and Deanna Burgess from Suzuki Marine — who are helping to lead the charge with the Kick Plastic and Clean Ocean projects.
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:10 Welcome to the Women in Fishing podcast.
00:13 I'm Chris Woodward.
00:14 The Women in Fishing podcast is sponsored
00:16 by Axonobel Yacht Coatings, makers of Interluxe and All
00:20 Grip products for boats.
00:22 So one of the increasingly important conservation
00:25 movements in the marine world today
00:27 involves reducing our dependence upon single-use plastics.
00:32 For today's podcast, I'm talking with women
00:34 from two different companies that are leading this charge.
00:38 Leah Colabello works on sustainability for Costa,
00:41 where she manages the brand's Kick Plastic campaign, which
00:45 seeks to reduce the amount of single-use plastic
00:47 waste in our waterways.
00:49 Leah started her own women-led company,
00:51 Planet Purpose Solutions, to help
00:54 a wide range of organizations with their sustainability
00:57 initiatives.
00:58 Deanna Burgess is a marine marketing specialist
01:01 with Suzuki Marine.
01:02 Suzuki started its Clean Ocean project in 2020,
01:06 but it began conducting worldwide trash and plastics
01:09 cleanups through its dealer network in 2010.
01:13 The company also has taken steps to reduce
01:16 its own plastic packaging, and its engineers
01:19 devised a microplastic collecting device
01:22 that is factory-mounted to many of Suzuki's outboards.
01:25 The device collects microplastics
01:27 as the engine runs.
01:29 Microplastics represent a major issue for the world's oceans.
01:34 Welcome to the podcast, Leah and Deanna.
01:36 Hi, thank you.
01:38 So great to hang out with you.
01:39 Yeah, I actually didn't realize that was going to rhyme,
01:42 Leah and Deanna.
01:43 Wow.
01:43 OK.
01:46 All right, well, Leah, let's start out
01:49 by why don't you describe to our listeners why and when
01:52 Kick Plastics started.
01:55 What were the alarming statistics that
01:57 sort of created this need?
02:00 Thank you again for having me on your program,
02:03 because it's such a pleasure to share about what we can all
02:08 do around marine plastic pollution.
02:10 And having that opportunity through the lens
02:12 of COSTA's Kick Plastic program is absolutely wonderful.
02:16 So many thank yous.
02:17 So COSTA launched the Kick Plastic initiative in 2015
02:21 after seeing increasing amounts of marine plastic pollution
02:24 in the waters.
02:25 Plastic waste was everywhere.
02:27 Their travels led them.
02:28 There was no avoiding it.
02:30 And so the team started to look into what
02:33 could COSTA do as an organization
02:36 to tackle marine plastic pollution,
02:39 because the ethos around the brand
02:41 is to protect the watery world.
02:43 So when COSTA starts to look into taking
02:47 a stance on a conservation issue,
02:49 they partner with nonprofit organizations
02:51 that are experts in that field.
02:53 And in this case, it was the Five Gyres Institute.
02:57 And they're an organization that started out
03:01 trying to quantify the amount of marine plastic pollution
03:05 by sailing from continent to continent.
03:08 Like 15 years ago, they started doing all this research
03:11 and raise awareness about it.
03:13 And so they ended up providing great guidance
03:17 with the COSTA team.
03:18 And that's where my path first crossed with COSTA.
03:21 I was on the global partnership side
03:24 with the Five Gyres Institute.
03:26 And it's a nonprofit based out of California,
03:30 but it has these global implications.
03:31 They work with global organizations.
03:34 And I was traveling all around the world on behalf
03:37 of the Five Gyres Institute when COSTA came knocking
03:39 on my door saying, we're really concerned.
03:42 What can we do as a brand?
03:43 And so one of the things that we did
03:46 while I was with the Five Gyres Institute
03:48 is help COSTA understand the amount of single-use plastic
03:51 they were generating and start to take steps
03:54 to reduce it within its office operations and events.
03:59 When that was around nine years ago,
04:01 when COSTA really first started to tackle this issue.
04:05 And the research is always changing.
04:09 And back then it was brand new research saying
04:13 around 8 million metric tons of plastic
04:15 is flowing into the ocean each year.
04:19 And they were saying by 2050,
04:22 there will be more plastic in the ocean by weight than fish.
04:25 Like really alarming things.
04:28 A lot of marine mammals, unfortunately,
04:31 ingest marine plastic pollution
04:33 because it's suspended in the ocean.
04:35 When plastic is out in the ocean,
04:38 wave action, photo degradation happens,
04:41 and the plastic just becomes smaller and smaller
04:44 into microplastics as well as even nanoplastics.
04:49 And so it's everywhere.
04:52 It's suspended throughout the water column.
04:54 It's washing up on beaches.
04:56 It's in our rivers, lakes, and streams.
04:58 It's in our marshes.
05:00 And research at the time is, and it's still true today,
05:05 but they were just discovering how widespread it was.
05:07 Even the tiniest plankton were ingesting microplastics.
05:12 So then it was prevalent throughout the food chain, right?
05:17 So, you know, whales are washing ashore
05:19 with tons of plastic in their stomach.
05:22 To give you some updated data though on research,
05:26 there's now data that it's impacting human health.
05:29 So it's in our drinking water,
05:31 plastics in our drinking water, seafood, and table salt.
05:34 And research just this month said
05:37 that it's not just the ocean
05:39 that's transporting microplastics,
05:41 it's in the air.
05:43 And it's coming up out of actually the ocean
05:48 through the evaporation process
05:50 and traveling vast distances.
05:53 And it rains down and it contaminates basically
05:56 everything that we are growing to eat.
05:58 So there's just no escaping it.
06:01 The research is just now pouring out
06:03 where it was just,
06:04 there was nothing really out there 10 years ago.
06:06 But estimates that annual microplastics consumption
06:09 by humans range from like 40 to 50,000 particles
06:14 depending on your age.
06:17 So that's just ingestion.
06:18 But when you're inhaling plastic particles,
06:21 I mean, we have between 75 to 120,000 pieces of plastic
06:26 that we're somehow inhaling or ingesting into our bodies.
06:30 Which then leads to, I know this news is not good
06:32 and I'm sorry to be the downer here,
06:33 but microplastics have been found in human hearts,
06:36 it's in the bloodstream, lungs, placenta,
06:40 and it's causing damage to cells,
06:42 including cell death, allergic response
06:44 and damage to cell walls.
06:46 - And the plastics that are getting into the oceans
06:49 and becoming microplastics,
06:50 where are they coming from primarily?
06:52 How is all that getting into the ocean?
06:55 - Well, single use plastics is a real challenge globally.
06:59 So think of food service where,
07:02 I mean, how many times are we just walking down the street
07:04 and we see a styrofoam cup, right?
07:07 From a fast food restaurant or a straw or fork
07:10 or a plastic bag.
07:12 Every time it rains,
07:15 water will ultimately wash it into the watershed.
07:18 It'll just wash into the watershed
07:20 and then flow out into the oceans.
07:23 In our country here in the United States,
07:25 we're lucky because for the most part,
07:27 we have really good waste collection systems, right?
07:31 We have the garbage truck that's coming down the street
07:34 every week.
07:35 And if we're lucky,
07:36 we have recycling trucks that do that too.
07:38 But there's many parts of the world
07:40 where they have the same consumption aspects that we do,
07:44 right?
07:45 We're all using single use plastics every day
07:47 in everything we do,
07:49 but they don't have that garbage truck
07:51 coming down the street.
07:52 So they have dumps that kind of,
07:55 that spring up in remote places
07:58 or some people just kind of toss it out the window
08:01 and it'll just, again, wash into the watershed
08:05 and out into the ocean.
08:07 So essentially there's a product on the market
08:11 that doesn't have a real end of life solution.
08:16 And so that is what these bigger global conversations
08:19 that are happening are about.
08:21 How do we stem this tide
08:24 that is caused by consumption of a product
08:27 that there is no a way for?
08:30 - Well, Deanna,
08:31 Suzuki is involved on a global level as well, obviously,
08:35 because the company is worldwide.
08:37 Tell us a little bit about why Suzuki started
08:39 its Clean Ocean Project
08:41 and what were the issues and problems
08:43 that Suzuki is hoping to address?
08:46 - We have the Clean Ocean Project
08:47 that we launched back in 2020,
08:50 which stems back from Suzuki's original
08:53 Clean Up the World campaign back in 2010.
08:56 Giving back to the environment
08:57 has always been important to Suzuki.
08:59 And we've been active in 26 countries around the world.
09:03 We clean up pollution, we clean up the beaches,
09:06 we do beautify the parks and restore habitats when possible.
09:11 And this commitment provided a lead-in
09:15 to this Clean Ocean Project to focus on our efforts
09:19 in cleaning up the microplastics in the oceans
09:22 and in the waterways,
09:23 both in terms of removing the plastic pollution
09:27 in the waters, as well as just reducing
09:31 the single-use plastics in our product packaging
09:33 and shipping and stuff like that.
09:35 Anything to contribute to the marine ecosystem.
09:40 - Leah, what are some of the main projects
09:42 and initiatives that Costa has promoted through Clean Plastic?
09:47 - What started as this inquiry
09:49 of how can we do better as an organization
09:53 and some real measurable progress
09:55 in reducing the single-use impacts
09:57 within the office and operations,
10:00 and especially at events as well, right?
10:03 Because it's forward facing.
10:05 We had done an audit of the amount of single-use plastic
10:08 we were using and then took steps
10:11 to try to find innovative solutions
10:13 to sort of replace the purpose
10:18 which had needed to be matched, right?
10:19 And that wasn't easy, right?
10:22 So when you think about plastic poly bags,
10:25 that protect apparel from the shipping processes
10:30 and the warehousing processes, right?
10:33 We have now found a type of FSC certified paper packaging
10:39 that much, not all yet, but much of our apparel
10:42 can be shipped out in and survive
10:45 that manufacturing process that is,
10:48 you really need to have a durable packaging solution
10:51 for that.
10:52 So those are some examples.
10:54 We started to branch out and work with our industry partners
10:57 like Yeti, for example.
10:59 And when we were branching out,
11:02 we realized that we,
11:03 COSA has this amazing community of fishing ambassadors,
11:08 right?
11:08 And lodges and outfitters and captains and guides.
11:11 And what we ended up doing was starting a program
11:14 inspired in conjunction with them
11:17 to stop the amount of single-use plastic water bottles
11:20 that were going out on trips
11:23 because those are so easy once, you know,
11:25 they've been drunk to just kind of
11:27 flit away into the water with the next breeze.
11:30 And so with partners like Yeti and Clean Canteen,
11:33 we did a reusable water bottle program.
11:36 With that, we have an annual estimate
11:38 'cause we survey our partners
11:40 and they say that about combined,
11:42 about 500,000 single-use plastic water bottles
11:45 are avoided annually
11:48 because of the Kik Plastic Guide and Outfitter Program.
11:52 We also work with optical dealers all across the country
11:56 to recycle the demo lenses, you know?
11:59 So when you buy a pair of eyeglasses,
12:01 they come with just a clear plastic polycarbonate lens
12:05 that then gets knocked out
12:06 and then your prescription gets replaced with it.
12:09 Well, there was no real end of life solution for those
12:12 except the trash, unfortunately.
12:15 But we had a partner that we started working
12:18 with a recycling partner
12:20 that was able to actually take those lenses
12:24 and turn it into,
12:25 I have a new update on all the things
12:26 that they can do with it
12:28 because it changes every year
12:29 depending on what the recycling market is asking for.
12:31 But historically, they've been turned into
12:35 plastic lumber, play sets, buckets, containers,
12:38 dive masks, eye protection, like for construction purposes,
12:43 like when you've got a saw, Frisbee, stadium seats,
12:45 carpets, traffic cones, right?
12:48 So we're finding life for these demo lenses
12:51 that our optical partners are turning in
12:54 to our recycling partner who then process it
12:57 and then repurposes them with other companies.
13:01 So since 2019, that program has recycled
13:05 over 18 tons of polycarbonate lenses.
13:09 - Cool.
13:10 Deanna, talk to me a little bit about
13:12 Suzuki's main project, some of the cleanups
13:15 and describe that microplastic collection device.
13:18 That's fascinating to me.
13:20 - It's very fascinating.
13:22 When we started the Clean Ocean Project,
13:24 we also announced our Suzuki microplastic collecting device.
13:29 Because the microplastic pollution is very hard to collect
13:33 because it's so small, so tiny, five millimeters or smaller.
13:36 Suzuki came up with an innovative solution
13:40 to remove the plastics from the oceans and waterways
13:44 with this development of a filter system,
13:46 which is known as the microplastic collecting device.
13:49 The filter system is in the same spot in our engine,
13:55 the cooling device, the cooling line
13:57 that sucks in the water to cool the engine.
14:00 And it is sucking up the microplastic debris
14:04 and into a little filter that you can take it out,
14:08 empty it and then replace it and keep using it.
14:10 It's a standard equipment on all of our 115
14:13 and 140 horsepower engines worldwide.
14:15 Any of our competitors,
14:18 nobody has this filter system in their engines.
14:20 - Well, and it's my understanding that it,
14:22 I mean, that's totally something that the boater,
14:25 the engine owner can do himself or herself.
14:28 - Yeah.
14:29 - And pull that cowling off, take that device out,
14:32 dump it, put it back in.
14:34 So it's not something that has to happen
14:37 when you do your service on your outboard.
14:40 So it's something that the boaters themselves can do.
14:44 Does Suzuki foresee being able to put this in more models,
14:50 more outboards?
14:51 - They're looking into that and testing on the other models.
14:55 And when it sucks in,
14:57 there's also an overflow section in the unit
15:00 that won't allow, it won't mess up the engine in any way.
15:03 You won't damage the engine.
15:04 - Yeah, so, and it doesn't change performance
15:07 and all, none of that.
15:09 There's no difference whatsoever.
15:11 - None at all.
15:11 - Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that something
15:13 that you could, that you developed that was so simple
15:16 in terms of this complicated outboard is available
15:21 and people could, pretty much anybody could do it,
15:27 I would think, the other manufacturers,
15:29 hopefully that maybe they'll-
15:31 - They'll start doing something like that.
15:33 - They'll get on that.
15:33 And yeah, like Leah was saying there,
15:37 there's, I mean, millions and millions of pounds
15:41 of this out there.
15:43 And yeah, so it's, you know, it's a drop in the bucket,
15:46 but if everybody did it,
15:48 it's like if everybody stopped throwing something out
15:50 out their window, you'd be doing a lot better.
15:53 So, I mean, it does have to start on a grassroots level.
15:57 And I think that, you know, part of the message
16:00 that we want to get out to our listeners is,
16:04 it starts with you, you know?
16:06 It really does.
16:07 So what are some of the other things
16:09 that Suzuki's doing, Deanna?
16:11 So tell me a little bit about the cleanups and such
16:13 from the dealerships.
16:15 - We have a company-wide global drive to reduce the use
16:18 of the plastics and plastic waste with the manufacturing
16:22 and the packaging and the shipping
16:24 and using renewable recyclable materials.
16:28 Like we'll use bamboo straps on our pallets
16:32 and we have reusable pallets that we continue to use.
16:35 All our parts come in cardboard, recyclable containers.
16:40 And we do the cleanup events across the country.
16:43 Every boat show that we go to, the corporate goes to,
16:46 we set up a cleanup event in that area.
16:50 And we also partner with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers,
16:53 the local football team here,
16:54 and we do an annual cleanup with them
16:57 and keep Tampa Bay beautiful.
16:59 We work with them and their affiliates out in the world,
17:03 you know, in the country.
17:05 We also have anglers that we sponsor
17:07 and that's part of our agreement with them is to help have,
17:10 you know, they hold up clean events
17:12 around their area as well.
17:13 We also promote the recycling at events.
17:17 We sponsor recycle bins at all of our boat shows
17:20 that we attend and at the Tampa Stadium with the Buccaneers
17:24 and any events that they have.
17:25 So we have recycle bins located throughout the whole stadium.
17:28 We also provide alternatives to the plastic bottles
17:33 and we use, we're sponsoring these cartons,
17:38 like malt cartons, but they're water cartons.
17:40 So they're recyclable and not using the plastic.
17:44 - Gotcha, gotcha.
17:46 Well, Leah, I also know, you know,
17:48 Costa's doing a lot with say bio-resin frames
17:52 and those types of things too.
17:54 I assume that's all part of the kick plastic promotion.
17:59 - Yes, thank you so much for pointing that out.
18:02 So Costa has always explored new frame technologies
18:07 and it crossed our path about 10 years ago.
18:11 There is a type of material that's made
18:14 from the castor bean plant
18:15 that's grown in arid parts of the world.
18:18 And so it's not a crop that's competing for food resources.
18:23 And so we use the oil from the castor bean plant
18:28 and we mix it up with a proprietary petroleum,
18:32 like and bio-resin mix, that's what we call it.
18:34 So it's bio-based, but it's not all, you know,
18:38 made from the castor bean plant completely
18:42 because the technologies just aren't there yet.
18:45 And so that started a journey into looking at
18:47 how could we look at new frame materials
18:50 to meet some of these values as a company that we have.
18:53 And we ended up finding a wonderful partnership
18:56 with a group of people out in California called Boreo.
19:00 And they collect fishing nets that otherwise,
19:05 that are damaged and otherwise might be discarded
19:08 in the ocean from fishing villages all around South America.
19:12 And so with our partnership,
19:14 we're helping to avoid about a ton of nets from,
19:19 I mean, there's no garbage truck, again,
19:22 that comes around to these remote fishing villages
19:25 around South America to collect nets
19:27 that have gone beyond their useful life.
19:30 But Boreo is coming around, taking those nets,
19:33 processing them, putting them into pellets
19:36 that look like this.
19:40 And, oh, by the way,
19:41 and here's sort of what you're dealing with these net,
19:44 you can see nets are some of the most,
19:45 is the most harmful form of plastic pollution
19:47 'cause it continues to catch long after,
19:50 you know, it's been discarded.
19:52 So then they create these little pellets
19:53 and then put them together into our untangled frame
19:58 of sim buses.
20:00 And so that is this idea that COAST is exploring
20:03 around product circularity, right?
20:06 So all the materials when we designed this product,
20:09 how can we design out waste, right?
20:13 So even the little icon here
20:15 is made out of recycled aluminum.
20:18 These are some ways that we're looking at our product.
20:20 We're incorporating more recycled materials
20:22 into our apparel.
20:24 And then I also wanna touch,
20:26 as Deanna was talking about events,
20:27 how important it is to get out there with the public
20:31 and provide opportunities for them
20:33 to learn about how they can be engaged
20:36 and actually take action around marine plastic pollution.
20:40 And I think a pillar event for us
20:43 is the Miami International Boat Show
20:45 where we've worked with them by,
20:47 we install water stations and sell reusable water bottles.
20:52 And they've really cut down
20:54 on the amount of single use plastic water bottles
20:56 that are out there.
20:57 And I know this is really symbolic,
20:58 but it does add up to a lot of waste
21:02 that is being avoided by these practices
21:04 that Deanna and I, myself are talking about.
21:09 It's all a work in progress.
21:10 What's really wonderful about COAST
21:12 is the entire team is thinking,
21:15 like it's built into, all right,
21:17 when we're designing a product,
21:18 when we're creating event,
21:19 how are we avoiding waste?
21:22 How are we incorporating education
21:24 around marine plastic pollution
21:26 to further the kick plastic campaign?
21:28 We have a long way to go,
21:29 but you can't not try, right?
21:33 We all have to do something here.
21:35 - Exactly.
21:36 Yeah, you can't just throw up your hands
21:38 and say, "Eh, it's over."
21:40 Nevermind.
21:42 'Cause we do have to try to keep this planet going
21:46 at least for a while longer.
21:48 Hopefully well past our great grandchildren's eras
21:52 and all of that.
21:54 But are there any other successes
21:57 that you'd like to talk about?
21:59 Leah, I know you mentioned the amount of waste
22:03 that y'all were able to reduce early on through the project.
22:08 Are there any other successes from kick plastic
22:12 that you'd like to enumerate?
22:14 - I wanna point out that
22:16 without COAST's extended community,
22:19 of which you are all a part of, right?
22:22 We couldn't have amplified this program
22:25 and scaled it like we have, right?
22:27 So even with Suzuki, right?
22:30 It was really fun when they were developing this engine
22:32 and we were talking with them about it
22:34 and help them launch it in 2020.
22:36 Through that, it was really a fun,
22:38 it was a fun conversation to get that out into the market.
22:41 It's gonna take all of us to kick plastic.
22:44 We have such wonderful ambassadors
22:46 that have taken the kick plastic campaign
22:49 and amplified it like Carter Andrews
22:51 with his "Pick up three, right?
22:53 Take three from the sea" type of thing.
22:55 And Hilary Hutchinson that is going even further
22:57 talking around plastics,
22:59 especially in the inland rivers and waterways
23:01 that she is a guide on the bad news
23:06 around the environmental degradation of our planet.
23:08 Can sort of, two people can tune out, but we can't, right?
23:12 And we have to do everything that we can
23:16 that's within our power to stop.
23:18 So avoiding the single-use plastics.
23:20 And it just sounds,
23:21 bring your reusable bottle with you everywhere,
23:25 bring those grocery bags with you everywhere.
23:28 While these are small actions, relatives,
23:31 they help signal that you care.
23:34 I teach a class at the College of Charleston
23:38 for social entrepreneurs.
23:40 And we just talk about how important it is
23:42 for the next generation to help us find solutions.
23:46 So when you are all educated, right?
23:48 Like all these terrible stats
23:49 that we started the podcast with,
23:51 when everyone understands what's on the line,
23:54 literally our lives, as we just learned,
23:58 that means that like students are graduating
24:01 to try to tackle these issues in new fields,
24:04 do new research, create new innovative projects.
24:07 So this conversation needs to keep happening
24:10 so that it inspires current and future leaders
24:14 to be champions of change.
24:15 We need to move back into a society
24:18 that reuses things instead of just relying solely
24:23 on the single-use functionalities
24:26 that we've become so accustomed to.
24:29 It's hard.
24:31 This is not easy, but it can be done
24:34 if enough of us have that kind of commitment.
24:36 - Absolutely.
24:37 Deanna, what about successes from the Clean Ocean Project?
24:40 Do you have any stats or any enumeration there?
24:43 - We've eliminated about 28 tons of plastic waste.
24:48 - Wow.
24:49 - And like Leah said, I mean, it's just,
24:54 the key goal is to educate and inform and inspire others
24:58 to follow our actions and provide,
25:00 just every little bit that everybody contributes
25:03 makes a mass difference.
25:05 And it's gonna take a lot of time, but it's just starting.
25:09 - Right, right.
25:10 It's starting, and as Leah was talking about,
25:13 the next generation of people who are studying this problem
25:16 in the school systems and in the universities,
25:20 hopefully we'll be able to come up with some more solutions
25:24 and that it just builds on itself.
25:27 - Habits, reusing, and of course it's convenience.
25:32 The plastic's convenience for people,
25:34 but we just have to train them.
25:37 Everybody just needs to learn to reuse.
25:39 - What about any future projects upcoming in the next year
25:44 that you could talk about with the Clean Ocean Project?
25:46 Anything new?
25:48 - Nothing's new, just they're testing, you know,
25:51 to provide this in the other engines
25:55 and just continuing to outgrow
25:59 or continuing to outreach and grow with the community events
26:03 and just, you know, partnering with more companies
26:08 together to work together,
26:09 because it's gonna take a group.
26:10 You can't do it by yourself.
26:12 - Right, right.
26:13 Leah, what's ahead for Kick Plastic?
26:16 - As we sort of mentioned, it's all about inspiring
26:18 the current and future generations, right,
26:22 about how they can take action.
26:24 So as the brand is growing nationally and globally,
26:28 it's taking that ethos that we have
26:31 to protect the watery world
26:33 and translating it internally into our brand actions,
26:36 our operations and events,
26:38 and inspiring external actions,
26:42 whether through brand partners,
26:44 like we talked about earlier,
26:45 or just the general public,
26:47 just encouraging everybody to think about
26:51 how can we make different choices, right?
26:54 Redesign products internally,
26:57 re-examine, you know, when we are going to an event,
27:01 like what are we bringing with us
27:03 and what are we leaving behind?
27:05 And it's quite very minimally for Costa now at this time.
27:08 For every new person that comes on board the Costa team,
27:12 every single one of them is so excited about Costa's ethos,
27:16 protect the watery world,
27:17 and through the Kick Plastic program
27:20 and One Coast where we help with, you know,
27:23 hurricane recovery or recovery from disasters,
27:26 they're taking the drumbeat that has been built
27:30 by generations of Costa leaders, right,
27:33 and they're carrying it with them and expanding upon it.
27:37 So I just feel so lucky to work with the Costa team
27:41 and the passion that everybody has
27:44 within the entire Costa community to just do better.
27:48 We put a report out about these kinds of projects
27:51 that we're working on,
27:52 and we'll be releasing that later this year.
27:55 It's our second edition of our Protect report.
27:58 So you'll be able to learn a lot more
28:00 about all our other activities we're doing
28:02 to protect the watery world within our own brand power,
28:06 as well as through our community partners
28:09 and conservation partners.
28:11 - Great, great.
28:12 Well, we're just seeing that.
28:13 Well, do either of you have any other topics
28:16 that you'd like to discuss that we haven't covered so far?
28:20 - Beach cleanups, river cleanups, right, lake cleanups,
28:23 they actually, they really matter
28:25 because once it's in the water,
28:27 it takes really robust technology,
28:29 like what Suzuki has, right, to try to get it out.
28:33 And it's hard.
28:34 So if you can just pick it up, avoid it if possible.
28:38 The issue of marine plastic pollution
28:39 affects each one of us to our core.
28:43 And we also have to think about those,
28:46 the generations that don't have a voice in this issue
28:49 'cause they haven't yet been born, right?
28:51 So like our actions today really impact people
28:54 that don't have a voice,
28:57 that will be living with the repercussions
28:59 of our decisions today.
29:01 So it's gonna take all of us to make better decisions
29:03 as individuals and as businesses,
29:06 and really make an effort to keep plastic
29:08 out of the environment.
29:09 - Yeah, indeed.
29:11 And just for anglers who have boats in particular,
29:16 stop and pick up things.
29:19 If you see a balloon floating on the water,
29:21 or if you see a plastic cup,
29:22 or if you see something that doesn't belong there,
29:26 stop and pick it up.
29:27 I know it takes you off plane and out of your,
29:30 you have to stop and think about,
29:34 okay, I'm gonna miss five minutes of fishing,
29:37 but I'm gonna do this.
29:38 (laughing)
29:40 Because it is important, like you said.
29:42 I mean, it's in here, it's in our bodies,
29:44 it's in our hearts, it's in our digestive tract.
29:48 It's crazy, there's so much of it.
29:50 So anyway, well, thank y'all for joining me.
29:53 And I much appreciate your messages
29:56 and the efforts that those companies are making
30:00 to make a difference here,
30:02 and to encourage others to do the same thing.
30:05 So thank you again.
30:08 I appreciate you.
30:08 Hope to see you both on the water sometime.
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