Plastic Fast 2019

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

NO MORE PLASTIC CUTLERY “Do not pollute the land where you live and where I dwell, says the Lord” Numbers 35:34. Fast food joints offer plastic forks, knives and spoons. More than half of these are thrown away without being recycled.  What happens then? Waterways become polluted When you throw something “away” there is no such place as “away” – it goes somewhere. Blown by the wind, taken by the rain, they often end up in rivers and oceans. Wildlife become endangered Fast foods are often consumed outside when people are travelling, the cutlery gets thrown out of the car.  Domestic and wild animals will feed on these items, with some animals mistaking them for food, and end up being choked to death or causing severe injuries to their bodies. The consumption of plastics can also clog up the stomachs of the animals if they don’t injure or cause their death. High carbon footprint Plastic cutlery has a lot of impact even before it gets to the market. This is because there is a lot of energy and carbon that are emitted during their production leading to the addition of heat and carbon to the atmosphere. This carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, combines with other greenhouse gases such as methane and end up causing devastating climatic changes. Extinction of marine species The presence of plastic cutlery on large water bodies means that there is a cause of suffocation for the marine life. Various species in marine waters depend on the circulation of air that comes from the atmosphere and diffuses into the water. Moreover, some of these small plastic cutleries such as spoons and forks can be ingested when mistaken for food by the marine life leading to death. Fishes can also be entangled in some of these cutleries leading to suffocation. When fish have consumed tiny particles of plastic, it becomes more and more concentrated as it moves up the food chain and is eventually eaten by humans. Air pollution At times, some people resort to burning the cutlery plastic waste, which ends up releasing lots of toxins into the atmosphere. These toxins mix with the same air that living organisms, both plants and animals, take up. The take up of this contaminated air over long period of time may lead to a myriad of respiratory diseases for humans, especially those that can be cancerous. The sea bed is also becoming a deposit of plastics. Plastics have also been found on islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. During a study trip by scientists to  Antarctica, whose climatic conditions do not support human life, plastics were discovered there. Harmful to the health of humans Eating hot meals from plastic cutlery is particularly dangerous as when plastics are exposed to high temperatures , chemicals are released which then get Consumed  with the food. What can we do? Wash up!! If you are having a function or event, get people to donate or buy a set of cutlery  for the church. Wash up for creation! Use wooden stirrers instead of plastic tea spoons Compostable Cutlery – There are quite a few options available now, of compostable cutlery that should be put with the food waste. Recycling – Plastic cutlery can be used many times over and then washed and recycled. Carry your own tea spoon – Pop a tea spoon in your hand bag or backpack so you never have to use a plastic tea spoon #beatplasticpollution #waronwaste #zeroplastic #greenanglicans #iamanglican References https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/environmental-impact-plastic-cutlery-and-solutions.php

NO MORE SINGLE-USE PLASTIC BAGS And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” Gen 1:20 Plastic bags start out as fossil fuels and end up as deadly waste in landfills and the ocean. Birds often mistake shredded plastic bags for food, filling their stomachs with toxic debris. For hungry sea turtles, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish between jellyfish and floating plastic shopping bags. Fish eat thousands of tons of plastic a year, transferring it up the food chain to bigger fish and marine mammals. Retail giants continue to use them for nearly every purchase made in their stores 10 Facts About Single-use Plastic Bags Worldwide we use 500 billion plastic bags per year. That is one million per minute Fewer than one in seven plastic bags are recycled It only takes 14 plastic bags for the equivalent of the petrol needed to drive one kilometre Up to 80% of ocean plastic pollution enters the ocean from land At least 267 different species are killed by plastic bags annually 100,000 marine animals are killed by plastic bags every year One in three sea turtles have been found with plastic in their stomachs Plastic bags are used for an average of 12 minutes It takes 500 years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. Plastic bags don’t break down, they break up into microplastics that continue to pollute the land or ocean. What can we do? Step One:  Bring your own bag for grocery shopping. All it takes is to remember before you go shopping. Buy some fold up bags to keep in your handbag or backpack for those unexpected buys. If you forget your bag, ask for a box. Step Two: Ask your local supermarket to stop using single use plastic. You can write to the manager Step Three: Get involved in a national ban campaign to ban the single use plastic bag. If you can’t find one, start one! The following countries have already banned single use plastic bags – Rwanda, Kenya, Morocco, Bali, Taiwan and France References https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/sustainability/plastic_bag_facts.html www.getaway.co.za/travel-news/countries-that-have-banned-plastic/ #rethinkthebag #bringyourownbag #beatplasticpollution #greenanglicans #iamanglican