Anthropogenic. That's a big word. Anyone know what that means? It refers to things that originate from human activity. Pollution is an anthopogenic effect. Plastic is also one. Being in Costa Rica, I was honestly expecting a pristine beach that was not effected by typical tourism. Unfortunately, I was proved wrong. Even the locals that come to the beach to fish, leave behind trash that ultimately effects the ecosystem around it. 

 This is a picture of a "hut" made by local fisherman to shade from the hurtful UV rays of the sun. You can see bottles, plastic bags, and beer cans. I also found cigarette butts, lighters, old broken flip flops, plastic straws, plastic silverware, bottle caps, broken plastic beach toys, wrappers of all kinds... the list could go on forever. Some of this was left by the fishermen, but most of it washed up on the beach from nightly high tides. If anyone does not understand why this is a problem, please spend eight minutes to watch the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wH878t78bw 

When I saw this video several months ago, I vowed to reduce my plastic waste. Yes, I recycle, but plastic can never really be recycled, just chopped up into little pieces. I now don't use plastic straws at restaurants and use reusable cloth bags instead of plastic bags at super markets. I'm not perfect, but every little bit counts. You can make a difference too with even the smallest changes. Big change always starts with little changes.