Ocean report – marine litter
From Surfrider Foundation Europe “Ocean Report – Marine Litter”, uploaded 20 September 2011.
Surfrider Foundation Europe – http://www.surfrider.eu/en/home.html
Surfrider Foundation – http://www.surfrider.org/
Posts Tagged ‘plastic’
19th Fistral Beach clean
On Saturday 28 April 2012, the 19th Keep Britain Tidy Fistral Beach clean takes place.
From Andy Heald the beach clean coordinator; “Thanks very much for the 20+ volunteers who attended the March clean. Seven full bags of litter, with the reappearance of seasonal litter (bbq’s, beer cans etc) a feature.
For the April clean I am happy to announce a revisit by the Mayor, Andy Hannan and the Newquay Lions. In addition to this, we are privileged to be part of Pirate FM’s Green Month. The Pirate FM radio crew and radio truck will be present on the day, joining us at South Fistral – Bodhi’s for the start, and welcoming us at the finish – North Fistral car park. Bodhi’s have kindly offered half price breakfast and drinks to all volunteers.
And the last piece of news, is the great reviews ‘Fistral Wreck’ is receiving at Galerie 17 in Fontainebleau, Paris. It is currently been exhibited alongside other work by the artist Davy Surier http://www.galerie17pointarts.com/Artistes/Pages/Davy_Surier.html . The art piece has used different materials from two cleans made in 2011. It is expected to go on show in Newquay later this year.
I look forward to seeing you all on the 28th at 10am for a 10.15am start.”
Protecting what we love – please consider when on the beach or after surfing collecting a handful of rubbish and ditching it in the nearest bin. As surfers let’s take the lead in caring for the ocean and our beaches.
Protecting what we love
A recent post on Jim Moriarty’s blog titled “I’m a surfer so I believe…” is a call to action; if we value our waves and beaches then we all have a part to play in preventing and removing the marine litter and rubbish from our beaches. These are responsibilities of all who use our beaches and oceans; whether as a surfer or as someone who simply enjoys feeling sand between their toes.
As surfers we can lead the way and maybe others will take note of our actions and follow our example. So why not at the end of your surf session when you are walking up the beach, stop and collect a handful of rubbish and ditch it into the nearest bin? Just think what a powerful message and example that would be.
I’m a surfer so I believe – used with the kind permission of Jim Moriarty CEO Surfrider Foundation.
“I’m a surfer so I believe our coastslines should be accessible. If we can’t get to the beaches, we can’t paddle out from them. Beaches are our open spaces that don’t belong to anyone. They belong to all of us.
I believe the water should be clean so I shouldn’t worry about getting an ear infection when I paddle out. High school surf teams shouldn’t have to get Hepatitis shots to be on their surf teams.
I believe being a surfer is more than just someone who rides waves; a surfer is also someone who protects waves. We’ve seen some of the best waves in the world lost essentially due to apathy or lack of organization. We have ourselves to blame for those lost waves… no one else. If we don’t organize and engage to fight for what we love future generations will rightly blame us for the losses.
I’m a surfer in 2012 and I expect to be able to see Dane Reynold’s otherworldly moves at Emma Wood on video in something approaching real time. I also expect to be able to see and learn from what surfers and activists are doing all over the world to protect places like Emma Wood. Video and other tools help us share stoke and not reinvent the wheel. If someone has a better way to protect a beach, we should all know about it.
When I’m in the water and a candy wrapper floats by I believe it’s my responsibility to stick it in my wetsuit. That’s just common sense. Rather than wondering how the heck my lineup is turning into a dump, I should do something about it. I will never accept that it’s ok to have trash in the lineup.
I surf because I love the water, I love waves. I’m not Kelly Slater and never will be. That’s not the point. I’m just stoked to be in the water gliding down the face of a wave. How insanely lucky are we to have that option in our day? I don’t take it for granted because very few people on the planet will ever know how that feels. We are blessed, we are lucky, we are fortunate.
I believe that to whom much has been given, much is expected.
I’m a surfer so I protect what I love.
What about you? Whether it’s with Surfrider or another organization, there are a myriad of ways to engage and protect what we love. The time for doing that is right this second.”
Surfrider Foundation – http://www.surfrider.org/
Marine litter
For a little over a year on the last Saturday of the month I take part in Keep Britain Tidy’s Fistral Beach clean. It feels good to give a little something back and to make a small contribution to the health of the ocean by removing marine litter.
By far the most interesting find to date has been a green tag with some cryptic writing on it; “99 DFO LOB NFLD”.
Harry Johnson who runs the wonderful The Flotsam Diaries website identified this as a lobster trap tag issued in 1999 by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to a licensed fisherman on the island of Newfoundland.
The DFO website explains that trap tags are used to ensure that trap limits are respected. The site then explains how the tags are used; “…tags are issued to licence holders in accordance with the number of traps that are authorized. The tags are sequentially numbered and are issued annually. A tag must be securely fastened to the frame of a Lobster trap prior to it being set for fishing. The Lobster trap tag will identify the fish harvester who owns the trap. It is illegal to set a Lobster trap, when the Lobster season is open, without a valid trap tag fastened.”
At some point the tag was cut or broke free from a lobster trap and made its way into the Atlantic Ocean. It probably followed the currents SW from Newfoundland until it was swept up by the edge of the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic current and carried east to Cornwall, finishing its amazing journey high on the southern end of Fistral Beach.
BeachCare – http://www.keepbritaintidy.org/Programmes/Beaches/BeachCare/Default.aspx
Beach Care
On the last Saturday of every month a small group of willing volunteers carry out a beach clean at Fistral Beach in Newquay. At times the task at hand can be daunting due to the high volume of rubbish and because it is just not possible to remove the thousands and thousands of tiny pieces of plastic from the beach by hand.
However we are aware that the marine rubbish that we do remove will hopefully not go back into the ocean and the food chain. As a surfer and beach goer it is always good karma to give a little something back.
The Fistral beach clean is run under Keep Britain Tidy’s BeachCare programme. BeachCare organiser Neil Hembrow has compiled some stats from the first fourteen beach cleans and it is interesting to see what has been collected and the comparisons between Fistral and other beach cleans.
More on the BeachCare programme can be found here. The next Fistral Beach clean is Saturday 28 January, details below;
A nasty addiction
We only recently came across this promotional video from Plastic Oceans. The images of animals caught in or consuming plastic are quite unsettling; the scale of the plastic problem is staggering but thankfully many organisations and individuals are acting on our behalf;
Doing our bit; from the National Geographic; 10 Things You Can Do to Save the Ocean – http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/take-action/10-things-you-can-do-to-save-the-ocean/
And also from National Geographic Magazine; Dolphin with plastic bag. The archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, is considered an ecological sanctuary.
February’s Fistral Beach Clean
Yesterday saw the fifth Fistral Beach clean organised by Keep Britain Tidy. After the initial look over the beach there didn’t appear to be much litter for the twenty odd volunteers to pick up. The past week has seen very high tides combined with big surf and the beach and sand dunes were given a bit a beating so much of the litter was taken out to sea.
A closer inspection of the beach revealed insidious plastic (particularly at the high tide line); thousands of very small pieces. So much so that it is almost an overwhelming task to remove. Picking up the bigger pieces of litter is obvious but the benefit of removing the small plastic items is that they are prevented from entering the food chain.
The bulk of the tiny plastic pieces were polystyrene and other types of plastic foam, difficult to effectively remove from the beach without the use of something like a sieve.
I could not help but think ‘how do we stop plastic such as foam ending up on the beaches in the first place’? I was asked by some people out walking what we were doing. They acknowledged that the beach cleaning was a good idea but it was their thoughts on where did the litter come from that made me make take notice. Ships out at sea, seagulls and beach visitors were given as the main culprits for beach litter.
Ships and gulls? I’m not too sure about that. There is no doubt that visitors to the beach are responsible for a lot of the litter found on beaches. The wind carries litter down to the shore and daily tides deposit the remainder. So how does litter enter the ocean?
Evidence shows that ocean plastic is entering the food chain. As much as there is a need for people to pick up and remove beach litter we all need to think of and be aware of the consequences of our actions with all that we buy and ultimately dispose of. Thankfully there are people and organisations like Harry (from Saco, Maine), Surfers Against Sewage, Keep Britain Tidy and The Surfrider Foundation who care and are taking action. More on Harry and his sterling efforts can be read about on his blog http://theflotsamdiaries.blogspot.com/.
Plastic or paper bags – a dilemma…
As a small start up surf clothing company we do not have money to throw around so all we spend on inkydeep is carefully considered. We pay particular attention to our environmental impact and the ethics of how we operate.
A current dilemma we face and have not yet cracked is the packaging we use to dispatch our t-shirts. We need to ensure our customers receive their t-shirts in perfect condition. Currently we use strong polythene stock bags that are recyclable but this is dependent on whether the local council provides this collection/recycling option; not many do. We place the products into a biodegradable re-usable mailing bag (degrades upon exposure to sunlight and heat) for delivery via the mail.
Mindful that we could potentially be adding to the huge amount of plastic waste in the world, we are looking for alternatives to the polythene bags; a cost effective environmentally friendly stock bag solution to store our t-shirts in and use for protecting them inside the mailing bag.
And here is the dilemma, there is a huge volume of research information available over the Internet listing the pros and cons of both paper and plastic bags which makes it hard to make an informed decision.
We need to look beyond the “made from recycled paper/plastic” or “this product can be recycled” labels and consider the lifecycle of that product… what was the environmental impact of making that paper or plastic bag and can it be recycled or preferably re-used?
We suspect the best option is a reusable solution but the cost is likely to prove prohibitive.
So if you have any suggestions for re-usable stock bags or how we could package our t-shirts so that they safely arrive at our customers we would love to hear from you. You can drop us a line at contact@inkydeep.com.
Andy.
The Plastic Problem
Yesterday was the third Fistral Beach clean organised by Keep Britain Tidy. Before we begin the beach clean we collect and count the junk and litter found within a small sample area. Once this is done the volunteers set off down the beach collecting the rubbish found along the beach and dunes.
For a casual walk down the beach yesterday you could have been forgiven for thinking Fistral Beach was clean with very little litter along its length. However when you stop and look carefully at the sand, in particular amongst the seaweed at the high tide line, that the plastic problem reveals itself. Sift through a clump of seaweed and you will find a lot of small plastic pieces, nylon string and rope, items from plastic bottles and other sundry waste items.
The litter found on the beach includes the usual suspects of foil packets, wood pieces, tins cans but the majority is plastic; from bottles to small broken down pieces of plastic, evidence of the plastic pollution problem. Most of these waste items appear to have been brought in on the tide.
In an area as large as Fistral Beach it is a dilemma whether to go after the larger more obvious litter or is it more important to pick up the small stuff that could easily be swallowed by fish which in turn could end up in the food chain?
Staying in one small area of the beach and ‘deep cleaning’ it, requires you to get down on your haunches and pick up the waste items by hand because they are too small for the litter pick up tool to grab hold of.
Here’s some examples of the items picked up during the beach clean;
Hundreds of little plastic pieces (what they are from or used to form is not identifiable)
Polystyrene pieces
Plastic drinking bottles
A plastic broom head
Hard foam (polyurethane?) pieces
Plastic handles/sleeves of cotton buds/swabs
Plastic screw on bottle tops
Plastic caps and collars from drinking bottles
Nylon string and rope of various thickness and sizes
Tampon applicators
Plastic drinking straws
Cigarette filters
Cigarette lighters
Fishing net segments
As for solutions, well that is going to be a hard nut to crack. Continuing to raise awareness of the problem, promoting and using alternatives and picking up litter are steps in the right direction.
http://www.mcsuk.org/
http://plasticpollutioncoalition.org/
http://www.sas.org.uk/campaigns/marine-litter/mermaids-tears/
The hunting ground…
Part of the catch…
5 Gyres
Checkout the work of the 5 Gyres Institute, raising awareness and working towards reducing plastic pollution in our oceans; http://5gyres.org/
