I moved to Orkney 18 months ago to take up the Eday Ranger
position, of course I’d always been concerned about marine pollution and
pollution in general but it wasn’t until I lived up here that I became quite so
passionate (or should I say militant) about it.
I think it’s the sheer amount you see up here, every tide line on every
beach is strewn with all kinds of plastic rubbish as the PU3P outreach to
schools proves with their collection of plastic items collected from around
Orkney. Then discovering the fate of all
these plastic items, to photo-degrade becoming smaller and smaller then being ingested
by marine life. That’s if birds and
mammals haven’t become entangled or trapped in plastic items before they break
down. Obviously, we all know marine
litter is not a good thing but I don’t think many people realise quite how
dangerous it is so the PU3P campaign is a brilliant idea as it helps the
physical state of the beaches but also makes people think about their plastic
use and what happens to their rubbish when it’s thrown out – where’s out? In terms of our planet, there is no out so we
need a shift in thinking, as well being very good recyclers and re-users we
also need to reduce the amount of plastic being manufactured, every new bit of
plastic is just another bit that will never, ever disappear!
So it was time for Eday to get the PU3P treatment, after a
visit to Glaitness Primary School with Lindsey from RSPB to watch Lesley in
action and learn how to interpret to a younger audience and also borrow the
collection of bruck to show the Eday children.
So first we had a chat about the marine environment, the fate of
plastics and other rubbish, the sad stories associated with it but then to
cheer us up again we talked about what we can do to help. It seems such a daunting prospect but as we
found out, if you do what you can, what more can anyone ask? The more people that think this way, the
bigger the movement will become. We then
had a go at identifying some of the marine litter PU3P had lent to us and the
children loved it as we made it like a scavenger hunt with a tick list. After all the items had been spotted we
talked through a few of them explaining how they could endanger an animal or
the effect it could have. As usual, the
Eday children were very interested and concerned so we had a wee chat about our
Bag the Bruck activity that will be coming up and they decided we should spread
the word of PU3P to everyone we know!
This was followed by a ‘Rubbish Evening’ at Eday Heritage
Centre, there was an illustrated presentation, similar to what the children had
in the morning although with a few more sad photos of seals entangled in rope,
whales in ghost-nets and birds killed through entanglement just to get the
point across as I reckon we all need reminded sometimes. This was followed by an excellent talk by
RSPB Enjoy Wild Orkney’s Anne Bignall on all the amazing things that can be
seen just below the surface of Orkney waters.
There was a quick break to refill glasses and order dinner then we
gathered again to watch Raymond Besant’s short film, ‘The Flying Dustbin’ which
tells the story of how plastic pollution affects fulmars, in a graphic yet
engaging way, again emphasising why we need to do something now. It was getting late by the time we finished
but there was still time for sausage, chips and Orkney Best. This event attracted 35 adults in the evening
and our entire school of six pupils took part in the morning, if everyone one
of those people went to the beach once and picked up their three pieces we’d
have 123 pieces less of litter on our beaches!
It all adds up so spread the word.
The next step for us is getting one of these fancy bins
you’ll have seen popping up all over Orkney, partaking in Bag the Bruck in April
and picking up 3 pieces all year long!
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