Herring Neck, June 8-9, 2021
What better way to celebrate World Ocean Week than by removing 1450 lbs of plastic from our marine environment? This week’s haul comes a mussel farm in Herring Neck, where the environment was left in a terrible state by its previous owner.
The good news is that much of the plastic is on the shoreline and relatively easy to retrieve. As well, many of the buoys and barrels can be re-used or repurposed. Did you know that a barrel cut in half makes a terrific potato or vegetable planter? We Newfoundlanders are resourceful!
The bad news: there is still rope EVERYWHERE. Rope that is rotting from exposure to the sun, breaking down and sending tiny microplastics into the ocean – and into our seafood. Did you know that in one Canadian study of microplastics in blue mussels, 100% of the Newfoundland sample was found to contain microplastics?! This is why it is so important to keep plastics out of the marine environment – for the health of the ocean, and our own!
On Day 1, Shawn retrieved 830 lbs of plastic:
- 1 large styrofoam block
- 9 barrels
- 4 large buoys
- 5 small buoys
- 5 nets, 3 half-nets (1 herring, 7 cod)
On Day 2, he retrieved 620 lbs!
- 8 barrels
- 5 large buoys
- 3 small buoys
- 4 large tear shaped buoys
- 3 pans of scrap plastic
- and a pile of old rope
Hopefully with more funding our team can return and finish the job. There is still a lot of plastic and rope in this bay, but with a solid effort we believe this area could be spotless, free of plastics, and a true CLEAN HARBOURS INITIATIVE.
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