Back in February Rebecca founder of Plastic Free July got in touch wanting to meet up. I was honoured and jumped at the chance! She was visiting the UK as part of a world-wide tour she´d been awarded by the Winston Churchill Fellowship.
Thankfully Rebecca is a keen cyclist, the best way to see Bristol by far! So we spent the day together and I showed some of the best of Bristol. Including Refilling as part of Refill Bristol.
We also did a #2minutebeachclean down on the River Avon. We exchanged stories, ate some of Bristol´s amazing food, drunk tea and had a lovely day!
Rebecca is such an inspiration having started Plastic Free July in 2011 last year 35,000 people across the globe took part. Amazing. I´m sure after her tour and all the people she has met along the way 2016 will be even better!
If you´re hearing headlines such as; there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish in just 30 years time... Learning we can´t “recycle” our way out of plastic pollution. Don´t get down! Get involved in Plastic Free July!
Thank you Holy Spokes! For the loan and delivery of a bike for Rebecca.
Within 5 minutes of leaving the station, Rebecca was blown away by Incredible Edible in Castle Park
It was sunny, Rebecca carries her plastic free sun lotion. I’ll be ordering some of this
Lucky it was Wednesday, so the Farmers Market was on. It wasn’t lunch time, but Rebecca couldn’t resist!
I love the concept of the Bristol Pound & it’s “normal” for me to use it. So naturally we used it for everything we bought that day — with The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust – AU, Plastic Free July, Bristol Pound and St Nicholas Market in Bristol, United Kingdom.
Happy to fill Rebecca’s metal tin. It was as tasty as it looks!
Rebecca spots her first Refill Station!! At No 1 Harbourside
Refilling, it was gunna be a thirsty day!
Leaving No 1 Harbourside I couldn’t help but notice the plastic floating in the harbour….
Rebecca investigates…
Polystyrene balls floating in a single use Polystyrene take away box.
I had to show Rebecca Millennium Square’s water fountain, in it’s second year. It’s now had a proper spruce up and looks great! Check it out when you’re out & about, & thirsty!
Rebecca very excited to spot a tall ship
After our 2 Minute Beach clean Rebecca notes where some of the single use plastics originate
Salt cafe, another Refill Station. #refillbristol
A Bristol tour wouldn’t be a Bristol tour with out Stokes Croft.
Just round the corner, and we came across this. We were both as excited as we look!
Biblos on Stokes Croft, another Refill Station!
We said good buy back at the station and pose to say thank you to Beth for bringing us together! Rebecca & I both feature in Beth Terry’s must have new revised book with a forward by Jack Johnson. “Plastic Free. How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can too.” It’s available here, full of tips inspiring and funny stories!
It´s Spring Clean time, world-wide thousands of people will clean hundreds of beaches, rivers and lakes. Together they´ll remove staggering amounts of plastics from our tide lines, and if you so wish, you can join them!
You can find the information for the world-wide cleans with Surfrider and for the UK with Surfers Against Sewage. Both have great websites where you can locate the nearest one to you.
Surfrider Europe also have also made a video, with the Beach Boys soundtrack. Who doesn´t love the Beach Boys?!
Back in 2009 We were doing one of many independent beach cleans in the January, when a guy from Germany, Ingo, joined in and told me about Surfriders Ocean Initiative. I signed us up and we were on the official map. Which meant we could add our figures to the data Surfrider collects.
Three of us, Ingo, Pedro and myself, held cleans on three different local beaches on one day.
Getting posters and registration forms ready
Praia do monte Clérigo
Praia do monte Clérigo
Praia da Arrifana
Praia da Arrifana
Praia da Amoreira
Praia do monte Clérigo
We participated every year after. Keeping an open time window so people could come when it was convenient for them (I couldn´t predict the surf and the clean needed to be arranged in advance) anywhere in the region of 60-90 people would come over the course of a day. We´d removed so much plastic year after year.
The year that I´d left, my friend Wiebke arranged one, and plans to do another this Spring, after a big swell.
Beach cleans are fantastic. When the weathers nice it´s a morning, afternoon on the beach. It has the “feel good factor”, time out doors moving plastics, walking away seeing how people have made a difference is a warm feeling. Having a tea, or beer with friends after is lovely (We often used it as an excuse to have bit of a party…!) But there´s a lot more to them that…
Cleaning prevent the plastic returning where it kills. Plastic doesn´t rot, the 100,000s of animals it kills do. Then the plastic goes back on it´s merry way to kill again and again… removing it prevents this from happening. Removing it from a river bank prevents it getting to the ocean in the first place.
In the press this week is the reporting of the Post-Mortem on the 13 stranded North Sea sperm whales finds their stomachs full of plastic. This occurred near the town of Tönning in Schleswig-Holstein (Germany).
Beach cleans educate. People learn about plastic pollution, and the more people who know plastics is in our oceans, and the devastating effect it is having, the more likely they are to make a choice when they are out shopping. Or go on to make other changes, such as Ingo, Pedro, Wiebke and myself.
I had no idea about plastic pollution until I took part in my first clean.
Ingo has since gone on to work with and teach disabled people to make incredible canvas bags. Pedro recently set up One Per Session. A public facebook group which encourage surfers to pick up one piece of plastic after a surf session and document their finds.
Though, from looking at the pictures, it´s not only surfers, and they don´t stop at one piece!
(These are just a few shots from the ever growing collection).
It´s a similar concept to Take 3 a not-for-profit organisation also started by a surfer Tim Silverwood in Australia in 2009 which now has over 15,000 followers on facebook. Small actions, adding up….
So if you fancy getting involved in a clean, here are the details again for Surfrider and Surfers Against Sewage.Or you may want to pick up One Per Session, where you can add your pictureshere. What ever you choose to do….
…Remember; every refusal, and every piece of plastic moved from our water ways – adds up!
An endangered sea turtle took the conversation of single use plastic straws viral, and to the headlines a couple of weeks ago.Maybe you saw it? Maybe you couldn´t bear to?
In this post I´m going to talk about single use plastic straws. Why they suck, and looking at amazing examples of simple solutions.
One from a bar in Bristol, the other, from children.
It took a team of Marine Biologist led by Christine Figgener in Costa Rica a pain staking ten minutes to pull the straw out of this endangered olive ridley sea turtles nostril. Thankfully, they filmed and shared the awful experience so many of us can learn by it. If you didn´t see it this is the short version. (For this turtle there is a happy ending.)
“Plastico!” exclaims one scientist. “Don´t fucking tell me it´s a fricking straw?” Replies the other.
That´s exactly what it was. A 10cm single use plastic drinking straw. Used one time, to drink one drink from…
I personally tried to ignore it too in my news feed, I was one of those that couldn´t bare to look. That was until my house mate sent it to me directly, with the message,
“I saw this little video a couple of days ago and it made me very sad “
My housemate sent it to me as it upset her. Which is good. That may sound awful, but what it´s happening to millions of animals out in the oceans (& not just the oceans, birds, cows, camels they´re all suffering) IS upsetting.
People need to see for themselves, to be upset to make a change. I never would have, had I not seen equally haunting images that made me sit up and look around. We see haunting images all the time, but the ones I saw that day struck a chord. Why? I don´t know. Maybe because I could see the exact products causing so much harm all around me, a lot of which I didn´t actually need.
Stopping the use of straws isn´t a big change. Let´s face it, not sucking from a straw ain´t gunna kill us!
“I won´t be using them anymore.” My house mate said.
Another wrote; “Poor little mite 😦 looks awful. OK no more straws.”
Even if turtles aren´t your thing, they eat jelly fish. If the endangered turtles go on to become extinct, what will happen to the jelly fish? Will there numbers explode? Will swimming in the sea be a thing of the past? I hope I never find out…
Refusing straws, like refusing other SUPs (single use plastics) can feel futile. It´s just one straw, what difference can it make? This is a brilliant example of how one straw can make a difference, to the wildlife ingesting it.
Straws add up. We only need to look around us in any bar or restaurant to see how their usage is out of control.
All these straws are manufactured, in Asia probably.
Packed in plastic bags.
Shipped across the world on huge container ships. I saw Big Blue Live a few of weeks ago. The number of container ships is rising, so is lethal collisions with Blue Whales who do not have defense systems. For millions of years these gentle giants were the biggest creatures in the oceans and have never had to defend themselves against predators.
Driven around the country to their destinations.
Where they are used for a matter of moments before they enter the waste stream.
They go in another plastic bag, a bin bag.
Where again they´re transported to the magic place called “away”…
That´s a lot of effort and pollution, not just plastic pollution, simple so we don´t drink out a glass!
Recently Nat & I were having a meeting at The Canteen for the PALL feature we´re making for Made in Bristol TV.Nat went and got us tea and cake, and sat back down, “Go and look at their sign!”
Sign at The Canteen
Sign at The Canteen
“Just say NO to straws. We won´t give you one unless you ask.”
It´s bold. It´s brave. There´s no messin´! Be tricky to ask for a straw after seeing this on the wall.
And as Bristol is European Green Capital…
Bristol, do you really need one?
So, I thought it fitting to include The Canteen for the PALL feature. Nat interviewed Jamie and found out, by not giving out straws willy nilly, The Canteen are refusing to give out around 120,000 per year. Yep, that´s a lot of zeros! 120,000 per year!!
More or less that´s 350 a day. Which, when you look around that´s easy numbers for a bar to dish out. The Canteen have been awarded Sustainable Restaurant Associationshighest rating of three stars for their commitment to local and ethical suppliers and for their care of people and planet. Which, includes reducing waste. Which includes reducing single use plastic straws.
(The Canteen are provider for the people of Hamilton House and beyond, based on Stokes Croft in Bristol, UK)
The interview aired on Thursday 24th September, you can watch it on Made in Bristol TV catch up Here
Naturally, a bar refusing to give out straws is going to add up more than an individual refusing them. (unless you can put serious amounts of drink away!) but individuals refusing straws do add up, as well as sending a message out that we don´t want them, that we can manage, and are happy to drink without them.
“So, who does ask for a straw?” Nat asked. “Children.” At which point, from behind the camera, my ears twitched. Children. I personally know of a few children who refuse straws. A couple of boys in Portugal and another friend´s daughter who I saw a few weeks ago. Seven year old Scarlett was busting to tell me how she´s refused straws the day before at the pub, for her and her friends. She was proud, and so she should be.
That´s because Scarlett´s educated about single use plastics (I lived with her for 5 months and taught at her school…) and her natural instinct is to protect animals, which for her, among other things, is refusing straws. Scarlett´s not the only one, kids love animals. If more children knew where their single use plastic straws can end up, I´d bet we´d hear the echos of “no straw!” ringing around restaurants.
Take Milo, an exceptional example of what a driven 9-year-old has achieved. Thanks to a Facebook follower, I checked out his site Choose to be Straw Free
Milo Cress is a boy from Canada, who wanted to reduce and possibly eliminate the use of plastic disposable straws in restaurants. So in 2011, at the age of 9, he founded the Be Straw-Free project, which focuses on building awareness about plastic waste and its impact on the environment. Since then, Milo has visited local and international cities around the world, urging restaurant owners to adopt his “Offer First” policy, where straws would be offered first rather than being included automatically with served beverages.
This is a 9-year-old (well – was!) lad. Inspiring stuff indeed. This is him talking…
Milo´s busy, he´s all over it! He´s been all over the media and magazine. Jetting off to Australia to talk there, universities, meeting congressmen, his list is endless. Two of my personal favorites achievements of Milo´s have to be:
April 2013: Milo returns from first leg of International Speaking Tour to Australia where he spoke at schools and events in Australia. The Mayor of Manly officially declared Offer First a best practice city-wide!
Earth Day 2013: Milo partners with Xanterra to launch Be Straw Free at all their National Park properties.
Incredible. What an inspiration Milo is.
Some people can not fathom the thought of drinking without a straw. If you´re one of them, why not get yourself a nice glass or stainless steel one.
If you´ve read this far, then I have your straw attention…! This turtles plight can be one to make positive changes, small changes that add up. One tip, is to refuse TWICE. Once when you order, and again when they go off to get your drink. Bartenders and waiters are on straw auto-pilot, so saying it twice helps it stick.
Together, we can turn the tide on pointless single use plastic straws.
Being-PALL 