Teigan Nash and Shannon Vos join Sydney Volunteers for the Ocean event
Sydneysiders including Teigan Nash and Shannon Vos joined the global movement against removing plastic pollution from our oceans at a clean-up at Botany Bay on the weekend.
Southern Courier
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TV presenter Teigan Nash and Shannon Vos, one half of The Block 2014 winning duo, joined the global Volunteers for the Ocean push that saw 500kg of waste removed from Silver Beach, Botany Bay.
The local Botany Bay beach clean-up hosted by Corona and Parley, took place over two days and is part of a collaboration targeting threats to our oceans that are taking place at 20 Australian beaches this year.
“The Corona x Parley Volunteers for the Ocean initiative hit Australian shores for the first time last year, with 13 clean-ups taking place over the summer, Corona Australia’s Sarah Wilcox said.
“With roughly 400kg of plastic waste entering Australian oceans and waterways every hour, we are on a mission to protect our beaches,” she said.
The global movement to clean up our oceans was prompted by reports estimated 8 million metrics tons of plastic trash ends up in our oceans every year. The ocean currents have formed five gigantic, slow moving whirlpools where the plastic collects, called gyres. Most of the plastic debris sinks or remains in the gyres, however a significant percentage of it washes onto our coastlines daily.
“2020 will be a key year for the oceans movement,” Parley Founder and CEO Cyrill Gutsch said. “This is the start of the decade when humanity starts to make plastic and other harmful materials a relic of the toxic past. Our partnership with Corona, both in Australia and globally, has empowered thousands upon thousands of volunteers and allowed us to truly scale up. Beyond the hands-on impact of each clean-up, it’s very much about educating and changing minds – creating new ambassadors for the oceans. As the ongoing fires in Australia show we all have to own these global problems, together. Collectively, we all have a role to play in rewriting the future.”
The World Society for the Protection of Animals estimates that between 57,000 and 135,000 whales are entangled by plastic marine debris every year in addition to the inestimable – but likely millions – of birds, turtles, fish and other species affected by plastic marine debris.