Last year (2017) was an amazing year for Albatross Designs. We were able to introduce our message about plastic free shaving (Albatross SHAVES) around the world. We’ve had many happy customers on 6 continents and in countless countries! We also brought to market OCEAN SF -- which represents to us the future of clothing: durable, natural, and polyester micro-fiber pollution free!
To be honest, we have been feeling pretty damn good lately. The journey has been very tough, but the goal has remained pure and we can’t thank our understanding, awesome customers enough. We’ve given it our all and, while looking back to this challenging and exciting year, we feel we’ve made meaningful headway in reducing single use plastics from shaving. Isolated in our bubble composed of eco-conscious adventurers, progress feels like it’s happening quickly. And, guess what, IT IS! The Zero Waste Movement has exploded and millions of people around the world are now involved and actively making small, easy, and life-improving changes that have a giant impact on the world.
We don’t want to burst our own bubble, but feel we need to. Complacency is perhaps the greatest threat to the environment right now. We of course understand the petrochemical companies and dirty politics are the real threat, but we know their approach to the matter already, and it’s grim. So now, we believe the biggest threat is our own complacency. We need every single inch we can get in the fight to stop plastic pollution.
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Why? Just this year $180 BILLION has been committed by petrochemical companies to build new plastics factories. These factories will likely increase global plastic production by 40% (See more here). Damn it, eh! Just when we feel as if we started to chip away a meaningful bit of the giants we face, they go out and spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new plastics factories.
Well guess what. We are not afraid of these oil giants. In fact, we want to put them out of business. If there is to be a history of our people, it will most definitely favor our side. In 2017, we saw a giant increase in our customer base around the world. These people, in our eyes, are the true leaders of change against plastic pollution. Of course, not just our customers, but any people who are actively saying no to plastic waste and pollution. For 2018, we are going to be encouraging like no other the leaders of the movement to get their friends, families, and co-workers interested in a zero waste (or at least lowered waste) lifestyle. For every one of our customers, there are probably at least 20 friends and family members that they could educate about the issues. Let’s get going friends!
For 2018, we encourage loudness among our supporters. We cheer on bold courage unafraid of resisting the status quo and letting others know ‘why’ while they’re at it. The world is at a pivotal moment. It really is. Politics are (unfortunately) stunning right now. The environment really can’t take much more.
For quite a while we have been wondering how people so readily and easily forget mankind’s reliance on Nature. We’ve been amazed how simple ideas like “Clean Water Good, Coal Ash Water Bad” have been politicized to the point where some folks will literally tell you just the opposite and we believe them. For those who see through this self-serving BS, we implore you to make your perspectives heard to those who do not yet see.
There has rarely been something so important to fight for. It is not just the ocean, not just the air, or rivers, or plants, or animals, or our own health that we are fighting for. It is all of it! ALL OF IT means something to who we are and the types of lives we *can* lead. It means something to what parts of our past culture can remain and to who we as human beings will be in the future. Every small discussion is a seed that gets planted. One day our seeds will blossom into a beautiful plastic free life: A Golden Age of modern society.
Remember, Freedom is more than doing what you want to do when you want to do it. It must necessarily be represented in part by having the capability to do something. When we destroy the Natural world we depend on, we also destroy so many capabilities that we once had.
… And, for what? To work too much so that we can pay bills for things we don’t need?
