Duotone Magazin No.01 2019

T he ocean is our playground, our race track and relaxation zone, our source of inspiration and thrill. We love it. Not only for the endless opportunities it offers in regard to kiting but also for the power, strength, and beauty it exudes. Without it kiteboarding wouldn’t be the same. Yet this essential part of our lives is seriously threatened. Huge amounts of garbage, especially plastic, are endangering our oceans and the wildlife living in it. By now, plastic makes up most of the marine litter worldwide. Experts estimate it at millions of tons. And those numbers are growing. According to the UN more than 8 million tons of plastic leak into the ocean each year – equal to dumping a garbage truck of plastic every minute. It is so much that you can see it from outer space. In some places the garbage builds up to ‘islands of trash’ which cover huge areas of the sea, some of them bigger than the entire country of Germany. If we continue dumping items such as plastic bottles, bags, and cups after a single use at our current rate, estimates suggest that by 2050 oceans will carry more plastic than fish. Plastic is particularly harmful to the environment as it doesn’t break down easily. A PET bottle for example takes up to 450 years to completely decompose. All this time it stays there, in the ocean, while slowly falling apart into tiny pieces, called microplastics. Microplastics range from 5 millimetres down to 100 nanometres in diameter and are filling the seas as well as entering the animals that live in them. As fish and shellfish are eaten by people or land animals, these microplastics obviously become part of the human foodchain. Additionally fish and other sea life like turtles, dolphins, and sea birds often get entangled in bigger plastic debris and are strangled. Or they mistake it for food, eat it but then are not able to digest it. This takes the lives of tens of thousands of marine animals each year. But where does it all come from? What’s the reason for all the plastic pollution? One important source is mismanaged plastic waste, meaning waste that, intentionally or accidentally, doesn’t make its way to proper receptacles. Waste which is thrown into rivers and lakes ends up in the sea eventually as well, as is garbage which is left at the beaches. But land-bound trash can also make its way to the sea. Mismanaged waste from land is ushered into local waterways by rain and wind. Especially small plastic parts like bottle caps or candy wrappers as well as cigarette butts and plastic bags are prone to end up in waterways and thus need to be disposed of properly. The smaller water­ ways then feed into larger tributaries and rivers that in turn empty into oceans. In this way, plastic from far inland can travel hundreds of kilometers to the coastline. In short: polluted rivers are pumping the world’s plastic into the oceans. As kiteboarding is our passion and our life we have an elemental responsibility to the ocean. We strive to preserve it, not just to keep our natural playground but also to maintain the environment and the wildlife living in it – to keep the beauty, the stoke, and the thrill in our lives. Erik Solheim, head of the UN Environment Programme, said, ‘It is past time that we tackle the plastic problem that blights our oceans. Plastic pollution is surfing onto Indonesian beaches, settling onto the ocean floor at the North Pole, and rising through the food chain onto our dinner tables. We’ve stood by too long as the problem has gotten worse. It must stop.’ Let’s stop it now. Let’s take action and not be the ones to wait for someone else to take care of it. It might only be a drop in the bucket – but it might also be the start of something that’ll make the difference in the end. The ocean is ours. We need it. It is our life. Let’smake sure it’ll be there in the future aswell. W O R L D W I D E D U O T O N E Clean Beach Day May 1st BE A PART OF I T AND STAY TUNED ON DUOTONESPORTS . COM/CLEANBEACHDAY #CLEANBEACHDAY + + AUSTRALIA Long Reef Beach, NSW St Kilda, VIC Main Beach, QLD Scarborough Beach, WA + + AUSTRIA Neusiedlersee + + BELGIUM Blankenberge, Zeebrugge   + + CAPE VERDE St. Maria (ION Club) Ponta Leme (ION Club) + + EGYPT Safaga (ION Club) + + NETHERLANDS Castricum aan Zee + + SPAIN Tarifa, Valdevaqueros Murcia, La Manga Tenerife, El Medano Fuerteventura, Costa Calma (ION Club) Fuerteventura, Risco del Paso (ION Club) + + UNITED KINGDOM Camber Sands Beach + + USA Oregon, The Gorge, Hood River + + ESTONIA Pärnu + + FRANCE Marseille Leucate Brest + + GERMANY Flensburg, Ostseebad + + ITALY Sicily, Puzziteddu Beach + + MOROCCO Dakhla (ION Club) Lassarga (ION Club) ©ead72 - stock.adobe.com T R U E 1 1 7 T R U E 1 1 6 C L E A N B E A C H D A Y