Drinking Responsibly for the Environment

Avoiding plastic or glass bottles is not always a possibility, most of us lead busy lives and the convenience of buying ready made beverages is going to happen. I drink a lot of sparkling waters (yes, I should invest in a soda stream), but the one thing I have been cognizant of for many years now are the plastic holders beer cans, pop cans come in. I know you are supposed to cut them up so no loops are possible.

We have all seen the above photo or something similar of what these plastic stringy holders can do to a turtle.

Yet, it isn’t only turtles who suffer from the consequences of people throwing out these plastic can/bottle holders. When we throw these in the trash without cutting them up, any small animal nosing around in the trash or a landfill can suffer because of our careless actions. Cutting up the plastic takes two seconds.

Something I didn’t think much about until recently through my best friend who volunteers for a wildlife preservation organization called Hope for Wildlife located in Nova Scotia are the plastic rings around bottles. Jenn sometimes picks up wounded animals to drop them off to Hope or take to a vet.

Above is a photo of the founder of Hope for Wildlife with one of her rescues.

One day Jenn told me about a baby raccoon who had been nosing around in someone’s trash and he stuck his tiny head through a juice ring like the below.

What happens to baby raccoons? They grow. Sadly, as the raccoon’s little neck grew the plastic began to tighten and cut into his skin which caused an infection which became septic in addition to the raccoon being slowly strangled, he had to be put down. I had never thought about my plastic rings from containers and bottles.