Sky News has launched a campaign to reduce the amount of plastic ending up in the world’s oceans. You can visit their campaign website here:
The campaign is being supported by Prince Charles and one idea being discussed is a deposit-return scheme for bottles. This is something that Eco-Congregation Scotland is already campaigning on through the Scottish Have You Got the Bottle campaign.
John Ryley, Head of Sky News, writes about why he started this campaign:
I love mussels. As well as being a delightfully tactile culinary experience, they instantly conjure up the sights and sounds of childhood.
You know the kind of thing. Seabirds wheeling over the cliffs, waves chasing you up the beach, splashing around in rock pools with a shrimp net, the heat of the sun, the sand between your toes.
It’s a Proustian daydream that reflects our communal love affair with one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. An inheritance that lies at the heart of our island history and shared sense of national identity. Passing on that legacy is one of the great joys of parenthood, and it seems like only yesterday that I introduced my own children to its many delights.
So imagine my shock when one day last summer while returning to a favourite seaside haunt, my son – currently studying marine biology – fixed me with a querulous smile as with a contented sigh I pushed aside the discarded remains of my moules marinière.
“Do you realise what you’ve just eaten, Dad?” he asked. He didn’t bother waiting for a reply.
“North Sea mussels contain on average one particle of plastic per gram of tissue. They get it from the seawater which is polluted with plastics from cosmetics, synthetic clothing, packaging, you name it. So you’ve just eaten around three hundred pieces of plastic in the last 10 minutes. And it’s still only lunchtime!”
My son went on to give me a spur-of-the-moment lecture on what he sees as potentially the most dangerous environmental catastrophe confronting his generation. Namely, the whole-scale pollution of the world’s oceans.
Read his full article here.