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Northern Beaches Clean Up Crew
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You take the rubbish out - where's out? It's still on this planet, right? Picking up rubbish helps, but reducing your amount of rubbish helps even more. Say no to single use plastic - if you use it once, don't buy it! #northernbeachescleanupcrew #litter #rubbish  Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead ~ #northernbeachescleanupcrew #gooddeed  If we all switched to reusable coffee cups, we would divert 500 billion takeaway coffee cups from landfill every year. #northernbeachescleanupcrew #coffee #keepcup #plasticfree #takeaway #plastic  Pigeons, ibis’ and many other bird species get such a bad wrap! But the problem, as always, starts with us! #northernbeachescleanupcrew #litter #rubbish   Cigarettes are the most littered item on earth. Worldwide, about 4.5 trillion cigarettes are littered each year. Cigarettes contain more than 7,000 chemicals, such as arsenic (used to kill rats) and formaldehyde (used to preserve dead animals, and humans, too). Littered cigarette butts leach toxic chemicals into the environment and can contaminate water. The toxic exposure can poison fish, as well as animals who eat cigarette butts. Cigarette filters may look like cotton, but 98 percent of cigarette filters are made of plastic fibers (cellulose acetate) that are tightly packed together, which leads to an estimated 1.69 billion pounds of cigarette butts winding up as toxic trash each year. Cigarettes don’t break down naturally, they can gradually decompose depending on environmental conditions like the rain and sun. Estimates on the time it takes vary, but a recent study found that a cigarette butt was only about 38 percent decomposed after two years. #northernbeachescleanupcrew #cigarettes  We found this margarine container on our February 2020 clean up. It says best before 02 Jan 1988 on it. Plastics don't biodegrade like organic matter, which means they can't be converted by living organisms into useful compounds for life. Instead, they photodegrade, a process by which photons from the sun's rays pulverize the plastic polymers until they are broken into individual molecules. This is why there are huge masses of plastic floating around our oceans and lakes, clogging our landfills and even leaching toxins into our water table. Grocery bags, plastic food wrap, sandwich bags, ziplock bags and produce bags are more troubling because they are typically used once - maybe twice - and then discarded, where - as previously established - they will wind up in a landfill or somewhere out in the wilderness where they will never biodegrade. And this begs the question that we - the consumers - must face. Is the ease of use of plastics like grocery bags, styrofoam containers or disposable forks really worth the cost? Now you know that those single use plastics cannot decompose, what are you going to do about it? #northernbeachescleanupcrew #beachcleanup #plastic #saynotoplastic #plasticpollutes  Local legend Sarah has created a kids party kit to try to cut down on the disposable elements of children’s parties. The kit contains: 16 dinner plates 16 cake plates 16 sets of cutlery 16 tumblers 1 large melamine bowl 1 ceramic cake stand 1 bamboo/ceramic dip/snack serving set 1 white cotton tablecloth 1 rainbow fabric table runner 3 coloured tea light holders Tea light candles Birthday badge She asks for a $20 deposit when you collect it and you can choose to donate any amount, if you wish, to the upkeep of the box. If you have a kids party coming up please email her at sarah.peachman1@gmail.com to arrange collection. #northernbeachescleanupcrew #plasticfree  Hobart is set to say goodbye to single-use plastics, after the council voted to enforce its ban on non-compostable food packaging from next year, becoming the first city in Australia to do so. The Hobart City Council's ban tackles non-compostable takeaway food packaging, which according to the Environment Protection Authority Tasmania, makes up about 50 per cent of the city's rubbish. It was estimated that the ban would take 10 million bits of single-use plastic out of the waste stream and litter stream every year in Hobart. The ban includes, but is not limited to, tubs and lids, cups and cup lids, utensils, including cutlery, stirrers and straws, sachets and packets. Yes, even the soy sauce fish is on its way out. It does not, however, mean the end of containers, straws or utensils, all of these can be substituted with compostable packaging. While it's not considered to be the ultimate solution to litter, compostable packaging is able to break down in the environment, particularly when disposed of properly. Council research found that about a third of Hobart's 300 businesses were already using some form of compostable packaging, and the hope, said Cr Harvey, was that this by-law would nudge the rest to make the change. #northernbeachescleanupcrew #plasticfree  A new study by the University of Newcastle in Australia has found that in average, people ingest 5 grams of plastic every week, or 2,000 microplastic particles. That's the equivalent of eating a credit card.  Be consumer wise. This is Coles making you pay a lot of extra for that plastic packaging. Bring your own veggie bags and buy some loose chilis instead. Better for your wallet and for the environment. #northernbeachescleanupcrew #plasticfree  |
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