How a Dive in the Aegean Sea Sparked a Lifelong Commitment to Plastic Waste Solutions.

My journey to tackling plastic waste began at the bottom of the sea in 1976, in the crystal-clear waters of the Aegean. Back then, I was on holiday in the former Yugoslavia, where I managed to stay (mostly) out of trouble, and even a brief arrest turned out to be a non-issue. I was already an experienced diver by then, thanks to earning my BSAC certification at 14—despite the usual minimum age being 16. Diving had always been a thrill, and the allure of the Aegean’s vibrant underwater world was like something out of a Jacques Cousteau documentary.

But on one of my dives, I encountered something unexpected: a “mountain” of plastic cups, towering 15 feet high and stretching across 50 square yards of the seafloor. I was horrified. These cups, tossed overboard daily by boat tours, had accumulated into a permanent, underwater landfill. Local boat operators would toast the sea god Neptune with cups of potent Slivovitz, only to toss the empty cups into the sea. With little to no tides in this part of the Aegean, the cups simply settled on the seafloor, undisturbed.

That evening, as I thought about the sight, I was frustrated by the lack of solutions. These boat operators likely had no idea of the mess they were creating underwater. Anti-littering campaigns were gaining traction on land, but underwater? Out of sight, out of mind. Educating these operators seemed an uphill battle, so I wondered if perhaps the cups could simply be crushed on board to make the disposal easier.

An idea began to form: what if we had a waste bin with a press that could compress the cups into smaller volumes, reducing the waste footprint? However, it was difficult to argue for a costly solution when boat operators had a “free” option of simply dumping the waste. This was before MARPOL (Marine Pollution) regulations, and environmental advocacy was still in its early days—long before David Attenborough would inspire global awareness with The Living Planet.

That experience in the Aegean stuck with me, planting the seed for what would eventually become my mission. Decades later, it’s still the memory of that mountain of plastic on the ocean floor that drives me to seek better solutions for handling plastic waste.