Sunglasses lost at sea, an increasingly abundant waste product that exacerbates environmental pollution.

Every year, an estimated 10 million tons of trash end up in our seas and oceans. Oil products, glass, wood, metals, and other waste invade the habitats of the species that live there, although they ultimately affect, in one way or another, the rest of the planet's living beings. Any contribution to curbing this trend is helpful, such as the campaign we recently launched at AWA Sunglasses to clean the depths of lost sunglasses. This scenario is unthinkable if you wear one of our designs, since they all remain on the surface and can be easily recovered.

The growing plague of plastic waste

Other elements, however, end up dispersed throughout large bodies of salt water. According to the European Environment Agency, plastics stand out among them, both due to their abundance and the danger they pose. Unlike organic materials, they never completely disappear from the environment.

Sunlight, salt, and waves act on this waste, breaking it down into increasingly tiny pieces, measuring up to a millionth of a meter. When, due to currents, wind, and the Earth's rotation, they accumulate in one place, they end up creating large patches called "gyres."

To give you an idea of the scale of these polluting formations, the largest on record accumulates some 3.5 million tons of trash. It's located in the North Pacific and is estimated to occupy an area twice the size of the United States.

Over time, tiny fragments can wash up on the shore mixed with the sand and remain forever, even on the most remote beaches. Even worse is the possibility that they can become part of the food chain, passing from one organism to another without the possibility of being detected and eliminated.

(Link to the European Environment Agency publication: https://www.eea.europa.eu/es/senales/senales-2014/en-detalle/basura-en-nuestros-mares)

Cleanup actions, the first step to counteract pollution

Although initiatives are being developed to collect larger debris in deep waters, removing microplastics from the seas and oceans is an insurmountable challenge today. Currently, we lack the means to filter and remove these particles from the ecosystem, so the only valid remedies are to find them before they decompose into such small pieces.

Beach and coastal cleanups, while not the only option, represent a useful course of action to mitigate the problem. Without going any further, proposals related to such efforts help raise public awareness and encourage citizen involvement in adopting solutions. "The more volunteers join these types of activities," European environmental authorities themselves reason, "the better the prevention will be."

Contribute to the good condition of our coasts with AWA Sunglasses

At AWA Sunglasses, we could only respond to this call in one way: by positioning ourselves as an active part of the regeneration of our marine environment. It's no wonder we're talking about an environment that largely represents our reason for being, and we will tirelessly continue to protect it with your invaluable support.

A contribution that has reached us these past few months in the form of piles of lost sunglasses that, until not long ago, littered our coastal seabed. Thanks to those of you who have joined this waste recovery campaign, all these items will no longer swell the tides of waste invading our seas and oceans.

For those of you who aren't yet familiar with the initiative, we encourage you to participate and, in the process, save a few euros on your next purchase. For every copy you send us, you'll receive a €0.50 discount on any of the designs in our catalog. You can also add another €2 if you take two selfies mentioning @awasunglasses on social media.

If, for whatever reason, you're unable to join the initiative, remember that simply wearing AWA Sunglasses represents a beneficial behavior for the ecosystem. Unlike other alternatives on the market, they stay on the surface when they fall into the water, thus minimizing the chances of them ending up as polluting waste.