Plastic in the ocean

Noosa Suf Festival

This past week the Noosa Surf Festival has been running. It is a very big, if not relaxed event, more like as the name suggests a festival rather than a competition.  One of the stands on the beach which drew my attention was  Take 3, a group of people dedicated to cleaning up our beautiful beaches and spreading the word on behalf of the silent oceans and animals slowly being strangled away by our collective waste of plastic congregating in the ocean and on our foreshores.

timber boards and natural resin

Tim and Amanda were both very friendly and motivated to the cause.  Amanda enthusiastically explained that despite everything she carried as a surfer and Mom, she could still find space in her fingers to collect three pieces of rubbish on her way, hence the name Take 3.  They also ran a film and information evening which we attended with a talk and viewing of a movie called "Bag it"
I was pleased to see the "J" at Noosa was well attended and indeed sponsored, including a company that builds surfboards from timber with a honeycomb core to lighten and then glassed with a natural resin and bamboo matting, making the whole process friendly to the environment and to the manufacturer. I couldn't help thinking that riding a wave on one of these boards would be even more special.

The team from Take 3

We have all heard of the Guyra's of plastic swirling around different parts of our major oceans and I for one have felt a little better for my cleaning up my beach efforts each morning. What struck me during the movie was the initial problem of our lifestyle, the actual usage of the rubbish in the first place. Our two major contributors to the whole plastic issue are plastic bags and plastic drink bottles. I don't think that it would surprise to many people that literally billions of these items are used once and then deposited into land fill in one way or another every day. Even despite the recycling efforts to reduce some of the waste, most of it ends up in the environment to spend hundreds of years slowly breaking down. It is unavoidable then that a good deal of it will end up uncontrolled, flowing into our waterways and thus into the ocean to do untold damage right down to our micro plankton.


Without going into the nitty gritty of the problems, I made a decision to action three things. To stop using plastic bags, to stop drinking bottled water and to pick up three pieces of rubbish every day.  The last one is going to be easy enough, and even the plastic bottles can be changed and stopped with only a minor adjustment. The more challenging part is to stop the bags. I am notorious that despite my best intentions, in forgetting my cloth bags, so with new vigour I have put plenty in the car.
My first foray was worth a mention. I headed off to our local butcher for meat. Armed with containers to put the meat into I proudly gave my smiling assistant the containers to save the plastic bags. With a twinkle in his eye he enthusiastically said no worries before putting my purchase on a plastic bag to weigh before depositing the meat into my container and throwing away the bag!! I guess I still have some work to do there!
Without wanting to bang on too much I would like to encourage everyone to do three things
1 - Replace plastic bags with cloth bags. They are much sturdier and hold more meaning you need less.
2 - Replace plastic drink bottles with glass or steel bottles. If you don't like your tap water buy a filter.
3 - Pick up 3 pieces of rubbish every day. Get into the habit, no one will probably notice but you will feel better for it!!

For more information visit www.take3.org.au
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