This time Teal, who was named the 'Female Indiana Jones' by Time Magazine in 2015, used her trusty surfboard to traverse the humongous heaps of plastic trash that accumulated at the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula after years of continuous illegal dumping.
"Although there are many places like this throughout the world, the one featured in the video that I’m paddling through is along the Rivera Maya. The trash areas are large! I’m not sure about the one in the video as I did not have a way to measure — but it stretched as far as the eye could see," she remarked.
The adventurer explained that there’s also plenty of trash to be found along "the Sian Ka'an Beach line and most tropical beaches lines in the world", and that beaches that apparently do not contain any plastic waste may contain "micro plastics" which could "outnumber the sand particles" there.
According to Teal, solid waste is a global problem that essentially stems from the nature of global the economy which "created a culture of waste through the use of disposable plastics and excessive packaging."
She told Sputnik Mundo that "the industries and governments of the developed world" need to "look beyond the bottom line" and help develop sustainable solutions for solid waste disposal "in areas of the world that lack resources" to deal with this issue.
Teal also added that her film – Alison's Adventures Maldives – has helped raise awareness about the so-called Trash Island, attracting the attention of virtually all major media outlets to the problem and awakening the world "to the environmental threat of global plastic pollution."
"This is what I do with my non-profit and film series – educate through entertainment to inspire action that creates change!" Teal declared.
