Getting over the #Nurdles
On Wednesday 29th October Green Anglicans , together with youth leaders from the catholic and Dutch Reformed church ( the #Together4Creation organizing team) gathered at Muizenburg beach to play our part in tackling the issue of nurdles washing up on our shoreline. So, what are nurdles you ask? This was one of the questions that passers-by asked us as we were making our way down the beach with containers, brooms and buckets picking up these tiny bits of plastic.
According to the Cambridge dictionary Nurdles are “very small round pieces of plastic used as a raw material (= a material before it has been processed for use) in making plastic products” (Cambridge dictionary). These plastic pellets entered our oceans by means of a shipping container spilling into the sea at a port in Durban and is now found washing up on 1200km of countries shoreline. Now considering how small these pellets are and how big a shipping container is, one can only imagine the impact on our marine and bird life as they consume these pellets.
This nurdle spill has been in our news headlines for a couple of days now and so as our response as the Together4Creation organizing team decided to pick up nurdles in a means of playing our part in getting rid of these plastic pellets. It was quite the process trying to pick up as much nurdles as possible considering how small they. Our efforts drew the attention of the people around us and walking by to inquire about what we were doing. We were also so happy to find other people joining in the cause with their own buckets and sifts and working to keep our marine life safe.
In reflection on the task and seeing how long we spent gathering the nurdles, one begins to think about if you really making an impact. What it made me realize is that our effort did was just a small part of a greater whole, and that is what is required to build the future that is sustainable for all of creation. Each one has to play their part as small as it is, we contribute to the greater whole.
As it says in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (ESV). We need one another, change comes when we band together.
#stopplasticpollution