Many people love to go to the beach, for many reasons. To build sandcastles, to hang out, to surf, and, of course, to swim! Most beaches have clean water to swim in. Actually, that last sentence was incorrect. Most beaches don’t have perfectly clean water to swim in. You may have not realised how much plastic there is. Once, my class and some others went on an excursion to the beach for Surf Life Saving, and the beach looked pristine and perfectly clean. Near the end of the day, though, one kid found a piece of some think of net and a plastic cup. Another kid found a plastic drink bottle, too. And, yuck, who wants to swim in polluted water?

So how do random items end up in “clean” water?

Usually when people litter, the wind carries it into rivers and lakes, and oceans. Animals often mistake this for food and try to eat it and die. Like turtles that eat jellyfish, for example, think that plastic bags are tasty jellies. Or, around 2018, there where several reports all over the world of dead whales washing ashore, and then found kilograms upon kilograms of random plastic items like dolls and bottles and once a basketball… how did that get there?

I’ve witnessed it, too. Once I went fishing with SolarPower and we saw a pelican eating a zip-lock bag. Fortunately, it didn’t manage to swallow it, and I wrote a report on it called “the Murray Pelican.”

And then, just like with the whales, the plastic eventually washes it ashore. There are also oil spills (do a bit of research on those - find some resources in the knowledge base) that kill many, many fish, and seabirds quickly, or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is not great at all. But you can help; you can help the fish and the swimmers. By using fewer plastic items, less items end up in the ocean and animal’s bellies. You can also ask your council to install more self-shutting bins, which makes sure plastic doesn’t blow out. It’s up to you to save the turtles.