Hello everyone, I am BIO BAULA,

a sea turtle and I’m 25 years old.

I want to tell you my story today.

I was born in Costa Rica on a beautiful sandy beach together with my 86 siblings. Unfortunately, I can’t even tell you exactly how many sisters or brothers but there were just too many and I was too small to remember all that.

In any case we were so many. Also from other nests there were hundreds of others. Because we all came into the world at about the same time and we are turtles, we all went to the sea at the same time. It was a hustle and bustle!

But unfortunately, some of them didn’t make it.

because even the evil seagulls have noticed that we’re on our way and have captured some of us. Most of them finally made it into the sea and started swimming and diving right away.

The water was so nice and fresh and cool, just how I like it. Life couldn’t get any more beautiful, that’s the way it should always be, I thought to myself at the time.

I swam and dived for the next few years, swimming with my friends on the same routes through the big wide sea. I grew too. Meanwhile I am 1 meter long and weigh, I think, about 350 kg. With that I am quite big and I hardly have anybody left who wants to harm me.

Sometimes when I swim near a beach, people come by and dive with me. This is very nice and a lot of fun.

Although I actually have a big problem with people, I am always nice to the divers.

“It wasn’t so bad when I was younger, but it got worse over the years.”

Many people simply throw their garbage into the sea or they get there in other ways. It’s very bad and mean. Hundreds of my own species and many other sea creatures, maybe even some of my siblings, have not survived the garbage plague. They got tangled up in the plastic things and then drowned or accidentally swallowed some of it while eating. There have been so many that I couldn’t even count them, and every day there are more deaths.

Most people are very ignorant and think that a little rubbish in the sea can’t be that bad. The sea is big enough but it can’t have so much garbage.

That is so wrong. You should see this!

I found a blanket of trash on one of my trips, between Hawaii and North America. People call this creepy thing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This horrible place is four and a half times as big as Germany and weighs, I think, about 80,000 tons.

Unfortunately I learned from friends that this is not the only garbage heap in the sea. There are probably some of them everywhere.

This is all garbage that people have thrown into my habitat.

Whether they are plastic bottles, nets, barrels, clothes or bags. Over the years, so much garbage has been accumulated that now is the time to finally stop it.

Thank God there are also good people who have recognized my problem and that of other sea creatures. They try to help wherever they can.

Some of them come with ships and lift the garbage out of the water, some of them think about how to do without this horrible plastic stuff completely.

A group of great people deserves my very special thanks for their sustained commitment to the topic of “avoiding plastic”.

They have founded a project that even bears my name.

The Biobaula project avoids plastic in a very special way and stands for active environmental protection, as cleaning products can be bought without plastic bottles. Then it is possible that not quite as much plastic will end up in my house.

If you think that this alone cannot be so many plastic bottles, let me tell you, and I have seen it for myself. People buy a lot of cleaning products in plastic bottles, which then end up in the sea by some means or other.

You are welcome to clean and keep your world clean, but please help to keep my world clean.

I am so grateful to all these people who help to do so. Because you are trying to give me and my children a bright future.

“It’s five to twelve! – Everybody help.”

Your BIOBAULA