Thanks to everyone who came to lend a hand at the Clean Up Australia Day beach clean and Wollongong harbour seabed clean last month. The haul was certainly much smaller than the last few years; we could put that down to people doing the right thing and taking their litter back home with them, but the reality is that Covid-19 kept the visitors away. It was heartening to see the Illawarra community come together to clean the harbour and surrounding beaches.
Save Batemans Sanctuaries
Congratulations to Austinmer director and National Geographic award-winning photographer, Aristo Risi for his documentary Sanctuary, which highlights the importance of saving the Bateman’s Sanctuaries, along with all of our NSW marine sanctuaries.
To date there have been more than 30,000 views of the short film and the message is clear: we don’t want marine sanctuary protections weakened.
The film includes interviews with many of the people who will be affected, not to mention the loss of marine habitat if the government continues to scrap the sanctuaries. In 2019, the NSW Government reduced the protections in the Batemans Sanctuaries without consulting the Yuin Native Title holders, the scientific community and marine park’s own Advisory Board.
A healthy marine park means that our coastal zones and, more importantly, the marine life get a chance to regenerate. A healthy ocean equals a healthier planet. You can watch the film on Facebook @savebatemanssanctuaries
Save the Farm
Closer to home, but still not quite in 2515, Surfrider South Coast is supporting the move to Save the Farm at Killalea State Park from developers to build 15 luxury eco lodges. Please head to our Facebook page @ SurfriderSouthCoast for more information and watch this space.
What’s happening with plastic?
Because plastic lasts a lot longer than any of us ever will, and we go through far too much of the stuff, policy-makers in Europe and China are introducing taxation, design rules, bans, targets and infrastructure.
Global governments are being forced to hit climate targets and move from linear plastic systems (single-use) to a circular economy (recycling).
Plastics are a massive untaxed burden, which costs us by contributing to carbon dioxide, health costs, collection costs and ocean pollution (carbontracker.org). So what are companies doing about their plastic footprint? The answer is ‘plastic credits’ as a pollution offset, but that just isn’t enough to solve our plastic problem. Some companies clean up plastic from the environment to use in their products, others could be greenwashing as there are no international standards for how these plastic credits are defined.
The solution to the plastic problem is to cut it out altogether. Recycling what has already been made is one way to reUSE, but the way to move forward to a cleaner and healthier future is simply REFUSE.
Join Surfrider
Want to get involved with Surfrider South Coast? We host our branch meetings on the first Wednesday of every month at Coledale RSL at 6.30pm. See you there! New members are welcome.
