Keep Australia Beautiful Week
Keep Australia Beautiful Week was established almost 50 years ago with the aim of engaging Australians to care for their environment and ‘Do The Right Thing’.
In 2018 the theme for Keep Australia Beautiful Week is ‘SOS – Save our Seas’ and the key focus of this topic is doing all that we can to raise awareness around the staggering amount of litter that is in our waterways, killing our marine life.
What issues are being faced in our Seas?
Currently there is approximately 10 million tonnes of litter that end up in the world’s oceans and seas each year. It is estimated that 70% of marine litter is on the seabed, 15% is floating in the water column and 15% is what we find on our shores.
Marine litter consists of a wide range of materials, including plastic, metal, wood, rubber, glass and paper. However, it is dominated by plastic which accounts for 80% of the items found on our beaches.
It is estimated that 80% of the ocean’s marine debris has come from the land, resulting in over 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic sea pollution. More than 270 of the world’s marine animal species are affected by marine debris, and over 100,000 of these creatures die every year from plastic entanglement. To find out more about the serious issue of single use plastic in our oceans you can also read our Blog post on Plastic Free July here.
How can I help?
You can start with something small such as simply picking up any rubbish that you see around your home or office, as these items will be swept into drains and end up heading into our waterways and further polluting our oceans and seas.
It is also important to have an effective waste management system which will ensure that the correct items are being recycled and not ending up in the wrong places. Ecobin’s range of waste and recycling bins are designed to make it easy for everyone to help the environment and recycle items correctly.
Finally if you’d like to be involved in the Keep Australia Beautiful Week competition can register to participate in a clean-up in the area of your choice (beach, lake, river, creek or anywhere that leads to a waterway) and remove everything that does not belong there.
Make sure to take a ‘before and after’ picture and share it to Facebook or Instagram tagging @KeepAustraliaBeautiful along with a short sentence of 25 words or less that explains why you believe it’s important to keep our oceans clean.
Remember to use both the #KABWeek and #Ecobin hashtag so we can see what you’ve achieved!