06/08/2026
Today is World Oceans Day, which gives us an opportunity to say something that does not get said often enough in equine health conversations.
Eleven million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean every year. Waterway plastic, from rivers, streams, and runoff channels, is the single largest source of ocean plastic pollution globally.
Discarded fishing nets account for the majority of what accumulates, they are cut loose at sea because there is no economic incentive to bring them back. The plastic that does not reach the open water finds its way into soil and groundwater. The soils full of microplastics become the “nutrition” for the hay and grain our horses consume every single day. The chronic inflammatory load so many horses carry from skin conditions, the microbiome erosion, the respiratory sensitivities , does not happen in isolation from the current environment those horses inhabit. The environment that their feed originates from is not a backdrop to equine health, it is a major variable in it, one we do not have the option of pretending it doesn’t.
Prevention means something specific to us at Neachai. What goes in the horse and what goes on the horse, are decisions that either support the horse’s health or erode it. Yet prevention that stops at only a product choice becomes solely a prevention philosophy. We cannot stand on a commitment to reducing the causes of chronic disease in our horses' lives alongside contributing to those very causes in the world those horses inhabit.
Neachai's mission has always been to address the causes of chronic disease in the horse's life, from inside and out, which means the packaging that product ships in, and the environment that horse breathes and grazes in, are not separate concerns. Prevention does not observe the boundaries we draw for our own convenience, and neither does health.
That is why we partnered with OceanWorks to guarantee the removal of half a pound of plastic from the environment with every product purchased. We built it into how we operate rather than a choice as a checkout donation. Every plastic product is post consumer recycled ocean plastics or reusable aluminum bottles. Our pouch packages are fully recyclable and biodegradable.
On World Ocean Day, we are grateful to OceanWorks for the infrastructure they have built, to the collection communities whose hands are on this work every day, and to every Neachai client, because every product you have chosen has been a choice for your horse and for the world they live in. We have always believed those two things are inseparable.
Proactive equine health supplements matched to your horse's biological needs. Our bio-individualized approach to equine health eliminates over supplementing and is aimed at activating the body's own enzymes and hormones to protect and repair the gut, joints and soft tissues, respiratory system and s...