This week, we visited one of Evolution’s favorite dive sites, Chocolate island. For those of you who read our recent blog entry on this majestic site, you know why this place is very special to us. Chocolate Island is what we like to call “macro heaven,” where it is a home for rare critters such as blue ring octopus and flamboyant cuttlefish.
On this particular dive, we were quite astonished to find so many dead batteries at the bottom of the ocean!
One of our dive guides Carlo and his guest Graham picked up returned from their dive with their pockets full of batteries and filled a bucket between the two of them alone.
Batteries are very harmful to our environment, especially our marine world. When these batteries, containing toxic substances such as mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic and beryllium are disposed into landfills, the contents permeate into the soil, groundwater and surface water. These toxins eventually to make its way into the ocean, poisoning our beautiful reef system and our marine creatures.
A life of a battery actually extends beyond their usage. It does not end when we dispose them. Their destructive power only just begins.
While there is no question about the hazardous impact of batteries on our environment, implementing a proper disposal system has been slow and difficult, even in developed countries. Here at Evolution, we take this issue seriously and collect and segregate used batteries which are sent to the mainland where they undergo proper waste management.
If YOU are interested in making a difference, here is just a few of the things you can do!
- Use rechargeable batteries
- Buy batteries containing less mercury, lead and cadmium
- Return used batteries to the manufacturer. Most computer, PDA and cell phone batteries can be returned to your service provider for proper waste management
- Instead of using batteries, consider renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, water.
Thank you for caring for our environment, and taking care of our home 🙂
