do you care?

a post elsewhere got me thinking...
as a diver, do you actively care about the environments in which you dive?

In the red sea for example, i remember our guide coming across some rubbish which he rolled up and put in his bcd to be thrown away on the surface...

I am a 'green' person in general and so care a lot about the environment in which I dive or any eco-system (love that phrase) for that matter. Not just because it follows that better the natural environment, more pleasure it gives us divers but mainly because it seems to the the right thing to do. I really get upset about illegal fishing practices, throwing rubbish in the sea etc.

Red Sea diving areas are among the worst offenders AFAIHS in this regard. The day boat divers are often the culprits and their guides are not usually as responsible as the liveaboard ones in enforcing dive discipline. I recall one or tow oth those just standing by while tourist divers dumped all manner of rubbish - including a lot of non-biodegradable stuff - during my 2009 trip to the Red Sea.

Slightly OT but I remember when I was trunking you could tell when you were approaching Birmingham by the fact that the sky went black with the smoke from coal burning, but back to the diving aspect when I did the start of my ongoing training on the house reef in Hurghada my instructor was forever picking up coke cans, plastic beer glasses etc dumped off the jetty by guests at the hotel and showing them to me and shaking his head

Although I love Malta I would have to say it is one of the most rubbish filled countries I have ever been to.
Even the shoreline in the water there is so much rubbish.
When we dive in Germany we collect beer bottles. Cash them in and it pays part off our gass fills when we go away.

While it is far from perfect, the Maldivian authorities do try to protect their reefs and marine life more than other imporatant diving places.

I think being a diver certainly makes you appreciate the sea and its life a lot more. Since diving I have become more conscientious about my actions but not to the point of becoming an 'eco warrior'.
I do get annoyed when I see the many 'komrades' strolling about on coral and chucking their litter in the sea.
In Egypt last year the guys from the dive centre watched someone repeatedly chuck her rubbish into the sea and then calmly go and sunbathe. They collected it all up without her seeing and shoved it in her handbag and beach bag when she nipped off somewhere with a few 'extras'.
The smell of the dead fish in her bag must have been horrendous in that heat

Yes, but for all we know the woman might have chucked the rubbish and the smelly plastic handbag back into the sea in anger when she discovered the well deserved prank.

I have a habit of picking up bottles, cans, plastic bags etc and stuffing them in a goodie bag that I then empty into a litter bin. Not obsessive - just trying to do a little bit.

I think she remained under the watchful eye of the dive centre staff, they certainly wouldn't have let her do I again, at least not on that stretch of the beach.

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We followed a slick of rubish in the maldives chucked over a liveabord or tourist type boat lots of rubish including refuse sacks bottles food sainitary products. Never saw the boat or our guys would have reported them.

I tend to pick up small bits that i see and discarded fishing line common in Selsey and swanage i always remove it.

Just be careful when picking up litter off the seabed, you might actually be doing more harm than good. That may be someone's home!

Must have been a while ago. Birmingham canals are a joy to behold. Whereas once they were copper green with floaters of all kinds, theyr'e now something different.

Plastics bags and bottles it just ends up in some poor creatures stomach.

Plastic bottles and bags tend to float, I was talking about the seabed where a plethora of sealife use bottles as homes. I'm not justifying littering the seas just to be careful when one thinks one is doing ones civic duty.

I defiantly care about where i dive Not just where i dive but everywhere i go, someone has too.

Im also that guy

Fair play - I do the same, and I encourage my divers to so regularly as well.

Although obviously organised with the best of intentions, events such as 'Project Aware Ocean Clean-Ups' perpetuate the concept that environmental awareness is only an annual consideration - and unfortunately, I've witnessed numpties tearing up stuff like old anchors just to 'win the weigh-in'... which, besides being a home to several anenomes and nudibranch, was also a nice feature on our dives.

Like you, I prefer to treat every dive as a considered 'clean-up dive' whenever possible - doing a 'little, often' has the added benefit of making sure rubbish gets put where it should be, before some resourceful critter makes their home out of it!

As a carry on from an early post on this topic. I drive the M53 to Ellesmere Port at 1:30 am to get to work and then when my truck is loaded from Ellesmere Port to Wrexham via the A483. the amount of Macdonalds wrapping, costa coffee cups, and pizza boxes just chucked out of the windows of motorists is unbeleivable

...indeed. I used to ride pillion on my Dads bike when I was a kid - one day, he pulled over a Volvo estate full of kids, and I had to laugh as I watched Dad march them and their mother back up the road to collect the McDonalds boxes, bags and cups they'd been throwing at him. The Mum was more embarrassed than annoyed at her kids, unfortunately.

Proper Road Captain, my Pa.

Littering is one of my pet hates, especially when it ends p outside my house and in my front garden! Grrrrrr