As 2014 draws nearer to a close, we are looking back on our achievements of this year and documenting some of our known facts – to date, over 9000 students (in 52 schools) have been reached with school talks, a primary youth conference, workshops and action events. We have organized and participated in 31 beach cleanups and worked with many companies throughout the year with corporate talks and beach cleanups. We also helped facilitate the epic 5 day fundraising 75km Round Lantau Island Swim Challenge and our biggest achievement this year was the soft launch and trial run of the PFS Sea Classroom onboard the Little Blue Trawler.
These are our known achievements, those that we plan for. But one of the things that make us want to keep doing what we do is when we hear stories about what has happened as a result of our planned events.
Below is one of these stories.
On our first education trip out on the Sea Classroom we had over the course of the day 43 students and 6 teachers join us for a beach cleanup and a visit to the Chi Man Wan fish farm platforms. We showed the students evidence of our trash getting into our food chain through fish bitten plastics that we had found, some on the beach and some on the platforms.
Almost 2 weeks after that trip I spoke with one of the teachers and she told me how much of an impact that school excursion had made on her. She said she had never known about the consequences of the trash on our beaches and in the sea and when she held a piece of fish bitten plastic it was a shock. She spoke with her mother in India about this as her mother sends her offerings in the river tied up in a plastic bag. She said to her mother that she should stop using the plastic bag as it would then come back in negative ways and explained what she had seen. She had never thought like this before and realized that in so many ways we were causing harm, often through unintended outcomes. But changes could and should be made, no matter how seemingly small they may be. One action, or one conversation, repeated many times can make a big impact.
It has been a great year for Plastic Free Seas and we are looking forward to more ripple effects from the work that we plan for in 2015. When people choose to make a positive difference in what they do – you never know what it will lead to!
Enjoy the rest of 2014.