Plastic waste in our oceans.
Apparently there are 5 trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans.
How did they get there? Living in a coastal town, Torquay, as I do I can see at source how this pollution ends up in our seas.
Walking the coastal paths is something I do regularly. The views are astonishing in their beauty, but unfortunately they are marred by plastic pollution. On the banks of rivers, on the beaches, on the sides of cliffs and floating in the sea…plastic is everywhere. And not just plastic…glass bottles and cans too mar the local beauty spots and end up in the sea.
One of my favourite beauty spots, by the end of summer resembles a rubbish tip with plastic bags full of rubbish thrown into the hedges lining the steep cliffs. Some bags miss the hedges and end up at the foot of the cliffs ready to be washed out to sea by winter storms.
People leave used barbecue sets on the grass, ‘take away’ food bags and cartons get thrown into the car park greenery and tins of beer are used to decorate the shrubs where beautiful and delicate butterflies fly.
I wonder why people come to our area to sit and stare at the gorgeous scenery or to picnic or sunbathe and then get up and walk away leaving behind plastic bottles, food cartons, beer cans, barbecue sets, shopping bags, nappies etc
Do they think that adds to the view? Do they think that the rubbish is going to miraculously disappear when their backs are turned?
I think you can feel my frustration in my words. I just don’t understand the mentality of these people. And clearly there are a lot of them.
Plastic pollution ends up in the food chain. The plastic breaks down to the size of a grain of sand over many, many years and this gets eaten by fish. And we eat fish…only time will tell what this is going to do to our children’s health, but I wouldn’t count in it having a positive effect.
Plastic and other rubbish also kills many thousands of birds, fish, turtles every year. It is so prevalent in our waters it can be found lying on the floor of the deepest seas.
I would like to see the throwing of litter become as anti social as drink driving. And I would like to see a major advertising campaign like we had years ago…asking people not to drop litter….or maybe telling them instead of asking them…’Don’t drop litter..take it home’.
Education is one way to help solve this problem.
Our children have a right to be informed and given the chance to do something about it. Not just by cutting out the throwing of litter on our streets and into our seas and rivers, but by understanding what is happening to the climate and their environment and how they and their actions directly effect it.
If we continue to live the way we do now we will completely destroy the conditions for our survival….the optimum temperature, clean fresh air, unpolluted food and water.
The conditions for this destruction have already been laid, if we don’t turn them around soon it will be too late.
This is Devon in all its contrasting beauty…please take care of it and take your rubbish home.
devon2mother 