Pick Up Three Pieces: April 2014

The children at Shapinsay School tackled the annual bruck bagging on the shores at Sandgarth beach.

Here are a few examples of what they found:

rope

netting

black plastic sheeting (baling wrap?)

broken creel

small drinks bottles

plastic lids

plastic toy digger

food containers

trainers

tyres

gloves

lighters

parts of pontoons

cartridge shells

electrical wire

fridge magnet

Awesome effort Litter Warriors!

Most of this bruck was made of plastic.

Some of it made specially for disposing of immediately after it was used!

A couple of days after the bruck bagging, the Pick Up Three Pieces team visited Shapinsay and the children had the chance to see some of Anne Bignall's pictures of underwater Orkney and the amazing creatures that live around our shores.

The children recognised a few of the items in the PU3P collection of marine litter from their Bag the Bruck expedition and found out that the cartridge shells probably come all the way from Canada. They also saw items that had come from Norway. They already knew that this litter poses a real problem of entanglement for marine animals and can be mistaken for food by birds and other creatures as it swirls around the North Atlantic.

These well informed litter warriors are making a difference by being active global citizens and taking responsibility for the environment around them.

Well done Shapinsay School!

In the last week or two piles of bruck have been deposited beside our beaches, shores and ditches all over Orkney. The bags are often picked up quite promptly so it is easy to underestimate just how much hard work has gone into Bagging the Bruck and the volume of litter that has been removed from the environment. Every pack of gloves and bags that is sent out is also followed up by a return form to let the organisers know how many bags were filled at each location. This does the job of letting the bin men know where to collect but also allows us to create a record of this year's efforts.

Individuals and community groups elect to clean specific beaches or stretches of shoreline or ditch, but a some of the picking is done by classes (or whole schools ) of children.

Some schools, like Firth, have shoreline right outside their school grounds!

Thank you to the children, staff and parents who join in and make Bag the Bruck so successful.

Well done litter warriors!

About PU3P

Pick Up Three Pieces was started and continues to be lead by Orkney school children who want to take responsibility for removing some of the litter that is building up on their local beaches. They are finding out it that it is a global problem seriously affecting animals. It entangles them or is mistaken for food by them. Plastic bags look like jellyfish to a turtle and marine mammals and birds are often entangled in floating debris.

We hope this blog will inspire all of our schools and our whole community to take an active part in this initiative. Guest posts from schools, community groups, recreational groups and clubs, and individuals with an interest in the marine environment, are welcome.

Shapinsay Bag the Bruck 2014

Firth Bag the Bruck 2014