Plastics in water

Please don't forget what you did! It was formidable! Your active local project is part of a global issue!

You undertook as a group, and as individuals, research visits to local lakes, rivers and canals. You assessed the scale of the problem as you could see it.

You conducted lake-side questionnaires for members of the public to see whether other people thought that plastics in water was an issue.

You created a facebook page, worked on logos and other promotional routes such as friendship discussions.

You organised your local communities to create litter pick teams, patrolling by water margins.

You interviewed by questionnaire the Canals Trust environment officer for information on their policies towards creating a plastics-free canal network.

You interviewed, face-to-face, an officer at Milton Keynes Parks Trust, who was responsible for dealing with environmental issues connected with waterways.

You sought out the latest publicly-available research from departments, such as from Exeter and Plymouth Universities. https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/news/microplastics-in-the-ocean and http://www.adventurescience.org/microplastics.html

You listened to environmental science programs on BBC Radio 4.

You have followed leads given to you by Tutor Dorothy, such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32384763

You interviewed the local Tesco store to find out about a source of plastic - they hand out thousands of bags every week just in one store alone.

You decided to use the local Scrapstore facility to buy fabric, from which you made dozens of shopping bags.

You organised with Tesco a day when you could hand out cloth bags for free at the entrance way.

You handed out over 50 bags with tags which conveyed information about your project, with instructions on how to make a simple cloth bag to replace your plastic one!

You created a press release/information sheet about your work to publicise the hazards of plastics in water.

Plastic pollution is a global issue. It is a hazard not only for our marine life but for people. Millions of people around the world do not have access to fresh water. Water reservoirs, even in remote areas such as Yemeni villages, are visibly contaminated with plastic bags, plastic containers, plastic objects, which will never fully degrade. By acting locally, we can all do something about a global problem.

I am hugely proud of you all! It takes team work, organisation, strength of purpose, and the sacrifice of personal egos to pull together and achieve something. I think you did that. You are under the pressures of having to think about how your project can be represented in an exam, and you did all this in under one year. Well done! I know how hard you've all worked.