Ncumisa

There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small. Psalm 104 :25 The seahorse (or Hippocampus, if you want to be scientific!) is a tiny fish that lives in the oceans. It’s called a seahorse because its head looks like the head of — you guessed it — a tiny horse. This unusual creature often swims with another seahorse, and they link their tails to stay together. It also swims “standing up” and tries to blend in with nearby plants so it doesn’t get eaten. Because of its body shape, the seahorse isn’t a very good swimmer. So rather than go out hunting for food, seahorses use their tails like anchors, holding on to a piece of sea grass or coral. They then wait for food — plankton and tiny crustaceans — to drift by so they can suck it up with their long snouts. With its poor swimming and its tendency to stay in one spot, the seahorse doesn’t go very fast! Seahorses are one of the few animals for which the male bears the young for the female. A female seahorse lays her eggs — sometimes hundreds of them — in a pouch on the male seahorse’s tummy. The pouch is very much like a kangaroo’s pouch. The eggs stay in the pouch until they hatch about 45 days later. A baby seahorse is only about the size of a jelly bean and must start finding its own food as soon as it’s born. How tragic then that these beautiful creatures are now holding onto pieces of plastic and their babies are eating tiny micro beads of plastic. Cotton buds As they are composed largely of the plastic polypropylene, cotton buds are a part of the wider plastic pollution problem. The Marine Conservation Society have described cotton buds as one of the most prevalent varieties of pollution on beaches in the UK. In response to this issue, Johnson & Johnson has vowed to stop selling plastic cotton buds in favour of paper, which is far more biodegradable. So when you buy cotton buds, makes sure they are paper not plastic

  Today choose one issue : maybe plastic straws or plastic bags , and one venue – your local supermarket or favorite coffee shop. And take action! Here are some actions you can take: Write a letter Get the contact details of the manager and write a personal letter to him/her explaining why you think their store is using too much plastic. Write to your local community paper. Use social media If you post a complaint about plastic on your social media, then tag the company (put @ with their name). They are often quite responsive. Start a petition There are lots of sites for starting petitions which are quite simple to do. E.g https://www.change.org/ or https://secure.avaaz.org/page/en/ “Plastic attack” People choose a certain day and then everyone takes the wrapping off their products and leaves it at the till, to show they don’t want it and also to highlight what a lot is being produced. The goal is to get supermarkets to see that customers want less plastic. #beatplasticpollution #zerowaste #greenanglicans #iamanglican Reference https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/02/health/plastic-attack-movement/index.html

FREE VEGETABLES FROM PLASTIC Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. Gen 1:29 Do you find that when you come home from shopping you then spend ten minutes taking all the fruit and vegetables out of plastic packaging and then putting it in the bin? Plastic is choking our oceans, polluting our rivers, contaminating our food and water and yet supermarkets continue to cover vegetables in plastic. Fruit and veg come in their own compostable wrapping, designed by nature! Yet we put them on plastic trays, cling wrapped with yet more plastic. Plastic packaging is for the benefit of the supermarket as it prolongs shelf life and profits Our food system has disconnected us from our food and from nature. The package it is in may show a very different reality to what we are actually eating. What can we do? Buy from the loose vegetables. Take a re-usable bag for fruit and vegetables so they don’t get put in yet another plastic bag. You can also usually find paper bags at the bread section to use. Shop at local farmers markets. When you do that you choose food that is fresh, ripe and nutritious. When you buy in a supermarket you buy what is on special offer. Buy seasonal fresh food which is more nutritious and free from harmful chemical wrapping Use social media. . Next time you shop, make a complaint about plastic at the customer helpdesk. And if you’re a social media user, share pictures of over-packaged food – ‘@’ your local supermarket using the hashtags #GoPlasticFree on Instagram or Twitter. #goplasticfree #beatplasticpollution #bringyourownbag #greenanglicans #iamanglican Reference https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jun/28/fruit-vegetables-plastic-packaging-food-relationship-pollution