​Coles, Balgowlah uses turtle killers to promote "fun" and sales. Balloons are in the top three most harmful waste items to wildlife. Birds and turtles not only ingest balloons, they actively select them as food. This is because a burst balloon often resembles a jellyfish, the natural food sources of many marine species like turtles.
Ingesting balloons, and the clips and strings attached to them, can cause intestinal blockages and results in a slow painful death through starvation. Marine animals don’t have the gastrointestinal pH levels to breakdown a balloon and for turtles, it may also cause floating syndrome. Trapped gases in the gut can cause a turtle to become buoyant, unable to dive for food—making them vulnerable to boat strikes and leading to starvation and severe dehydration.
Wildlife, both terrestrial and marine, can also become entangled in balloon ribbons or strings, causing injury or death through drowning, suffocation, or an inability to feed and avoid predators.
Even if balloons are disposed of "safely" they go to landfill where it may take up to 1,000 years to decompose, leaching potentially toxic substances into the soil and water. Why are some organisations like this so stubborn in regards to using balloons as "advertising fun?
Even if these balloons are biodegradable, it's greenwash. Natural latex may be biodegradable, but after adding chemicals, plasticizers and artificial dyes, how natural could it be? It may degrade after several years, but it’s surely not “biodegradable.”
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#northernbeachescleanupcrew #balloons #balloonsblow #plastic #plasticfree #plastickills #plasticpollutes #rubberjellyfish

​If Rwanda could do it more than ten years ago, why can't other countries do it?
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plasticfree

Fines for dropping a cigarette butt in the ACT will increase dramatically from $60 to $500 while littering a coffee cup will incur a $150 fine under the ACT Government’s rigorous new littering laws.
Under the new laws that were passed in the ACT Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, small-items littering, such as tickets or food wrappings, will incur a $150 fine instead of $60.
A framework was also introduced for escalating offences, where penalties increase according to the volume, mass or nature of litter dumped. Dumping under 10 litres of litter will attract a $500 fine, 10 to 200 litres will attract a $1,000 fine, while 200 to 1000 litres will incur a $1,500 fine.
Cigarette butts are the most common form of litter on the planet, and have a significant impact on the environment, releasing toxic chemicals and microplastics. With a hotter and drier climate, cigarettes present a real fire risk to our bush capital, with 13 per cent of grass fires in the ACT started by cigarettes.
The ACT Government currently spends $3 million a year cleaning, with Access Canberra receiving 1,178 reports of illegal dumping during the first seven months of 2019.
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #litter

Most Single-use Tampons and pads are made of bleached cotton, plastic, harmful fragrances that pollute our bodies as much as they pollute the environment they end up in. They also don’t break down for many hundreds of years.
Luckily we have plastic-free options. There is a medical grade silicone moon cup that you fold, put inside, it collects blood and then you dump the blood in the toilet. You can also wear reusable washable ultra absorbent zero smelling menstrual underwear that come in all sizes, colours and shapes.
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #reusable

How good is this? A Rockhampton primary school has collected almost 400k plastic bottle caps, which will be turned into prosthetic limbs. ❤️
Students have been collecting the lids over the past term and will send them to a company that melts the plastic and turns them into prosthetics for people injured in war. One student said it took about 500 plastic lids to make a hand.
"Our first goal was 10,000 bottle tops and then we smashed that by week one, and then we set a new goal of 50,000 and we smashed that by week four, and we set a new goal of 250,000 and we beat that by the end of term three."
Awesome job kids! 🙌
https://envision.org.au/envision-hands/
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plasticfree

Gumbo Limbo Nature Center of Boca Raton posted a photo on its Facebook page earlier this week showing a baby turtle that had eaten 104 pieces of plastic and tragically passed away.
In the picture, the small chunks of plastic are lined up next to the turtle, everything from balloons to bottle labels. Gumbo Limbo said this time of year is known as "washback" season, where turtle hatchlings that made it out to the Gulf Stream are now starting to wash back up along our coast.
The nature center said 100 percent of washback turtles that have plastic in their intestinal tracts don't survive. "It is safe to assume they each have plastic inside of them," said Whitney Crowder, the rehabilitation coordinator at Gumbo Limbo. Crowder said they've seen 121 washbacks this season, and dozens have died.
"Every single one that we have necropsied has had plastic in their system," said Crowder.
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plastic

Most of the bottled water you buy is just glorified tap water. There are a few brands whose water really comes from springs and mountain streams, but most are just tap water that’s been purified.

• Only 1 out of 5 plastic bottles is recycled. The rest just becomes litter or get buried somewhere.
• It takes 1 PET plastic bottle 700 years to start decomposing. Bacteria, which usually helps in breaking down organic materials, don’t like petroleum based plastics. Technically, they can last forever.
• More than 100 million plastic bottles are used worldwide every day!
• 90% of the cost of bottled water is due to the packaging, not the water quality.
• 3 liters of water is used to package 1 bottle of water.
• •An estimate 1,500 plastic bottles end up as waste in landfills or thrown in the ocean every second.
• Plastic is listed as the number one threat to our marine ecosystem.

#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plastic #plasticfree