A 15-minute clean-up at Werrong Beach results in more plastic and rubbish than we can carry back up the hill. Straws, coffee cups, plastic lids, plastic cutlery. Plastic in all colours and, in particular, a huge number of plastic bottle lids.
We’re at the beach to capture on video the symptoms of the world’s plastic addiction: it is here in the Royal National Park, away from daily council and private clean-ups, that the scale of the problem really hits home.
Is recycling the answer? Susie Crick, president of the South Coast branch of the Surfrider Foundation, says: “It is a good start.
“But how on earth are we going to recycle absolutely everything, when there is eight billion of us?”
The Surfrider Foundation is dedicated to the protection of Australia’s waves and beaches through conservation, activism, research and education.
The ocean has a powerful ally in Susie. An inspiring and positive activist, she says: “The ocean covers so much of our planet and we really have to protect it.”
Susie says many people are wrong about the extent to which plastic can be recycled.
“Some colours just cannot be recycled. Some of the bright colours, the bright blues, they’re really difficult to recycle.”
While she supports recycling, she points out its limitations, noting that items such as clothing and wallets can only use certain kinds of plastics in their manufacture.
“Globally, even though there's a huge push now on recycling, the actual amount that's being recycled, I think is less than 9 percent. We just can't recycle our way out of this mess … The fact that we are just dumping our garbage into [the ocean] is really sad for me and sad for future generations.
"I think it's so important that we use our voice to protect the ocean for the sake of future generations.”
Have a say
"Currently producers make whatever plastic they want (usually whatever is cheapest and most rigid), but if governments were to enforce a globally acceptable ‘standard’ then we would have higher recycling rates," writes Susie Crick in an opinion piece this Plastic Free July.
Read the full article here.
Feel inspired to campaign for change?
Write to your MP.
Alison Byrnes, the Member for Cunningham
Lee Evans, the Member for Heathcote
Ryan Park, the Member for Keira
Paul Scully, the Member for Wollongong
