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Quarterback Robert Griffin III doesn't approve of your plastic water bottle drinking. You know what I'm talking about. You do it all the time, I bet. I'm not blaming you. Society creates consumer traps and if you haven't invested in a re-usable water bottle, what do you re-hydrate with? You guessed it: Bottled water, or soda, or practically any other drink.
"It's incredible how many plastic water bottles we use a year, sometimes even in a day," Griffin III told Redskins.com Tuesday. "I've already started eliminating it from my daily routine. Plastic is everywhere. It doesn't dissolve and it's always there and that's part of the problem."
Plastic bottles are also just part of the problem that's killing oceans, something the foundation "Parley" has been committed to combatting, which happened again in grand fashion on Monday with help from the Redskins quarterback.
Speaking briefly in front of the general assembly at the United Nations in New York City, Griffin III, along with several other celebrities including Samuel L. Jackson, spoke out against various human practices that are helping destroy oceans, while suggesting other ways to support them.
Griffin III was asked to explain what the ocean meant to him.
"I just said that literally, it's something so much bigger than me as an individual…metaphorically speaking, it's bigger than me because we rely on the ocean. That -- people don't understand," he said. "Once they obtain that knowledge, they can truly understand what we're doing to it and why it's important that we don't destroy it."
The foundation, which approached Griffin III and asked him to speak, addresses "major threats towards our oceans, the most important ecosystem of our planet," its website says. "We believe the power for change lies in the hands of the consumer – given he has a choice – and the power to shape this new consumer mindset lies in the hands of the creative industries."
The website also provides some ominous statistics about the diminishment of sea life and coral reefs (by 2025 all the coral reef ecosystems will be gone (!), as in never coming back) in the near future, something Griffin III hopes his daughter will still get the chance to experience when she becomes a teenager.
"To have an opportunity to go to the U.N and speak to some of the delegates -- it was really cool," he said. "Not everybody gets that experience. Anytime you can help [on] that platform, to speak on a positive matter, to help our future generation experience the same pleasantries we get to, that's something you definitely jump at."
And when you consider the elimination of biodiversity in our ocean being the single greatest threat to the survival of humanity, doing the small things don't seem pointless.
"If we can set up some things going to the beach -- if we pick up the trash and the plastic that gets washed on shore -- I think that's something that can go a long way," Griffin III said. "Once the consumers demand there be a change, then there will be."
So, again, those water bottles. Cut them out.
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