{"id":680,"date":"2019-03-03T06:52:07","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T06:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebeachstories.com\/?p=680"},"modified":"2019-04-01T08:31:39","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T08:31:39","slug":"do-you-know-where-your-plastic-goes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/do-you-know-where-your-plastic-goes\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Know Where Your Plastic Goes?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Does it ever happen to you to find a plastic piece buried in the sand? We would say it’s very likely.. It may come from badly behaved beachgoers, brought in by a nearby river or stranded after a long trip, which has started far far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the\nlong time that takes for a plastic piece to break down into fragments, many forms of life can be harmed, from\nbig to small (along with the downsizing of the fragments). The longer a plastic\nitem stays in the environment, the worse. We can read in the news about the\nthreats related to floating plastics or plastics buried in the sand, and about\nthe estimated decaying times of different types of items.  Knowing\nwhat happens when a piece of plastic is left loose, will help to think more\nseriously about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing is\nsure: whatever plastic piece you\nfind, it comes from people. There were no plastics in nature until\nwe started dumping it.  We created the\nproblem, so it\u2019s up to us to look for solutions.  Don\u2019t we teach our kids to clean up after\nmaking a mess? It is pretty much the same idea then, on a bigger scale!  Plastics may strand ashore at any stage.\nSo, when you find plastics on the\nbeach is the perfect occasion to take it away from the ecosystem!  Never for a minute think that another person\u2019s\nlitter is not your problem.  Our connection to Earth\nand nature is not a personal issue: our\nplanet’s gain is everyone\u2019s gain.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now we know and we have no excuse for not taking action!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are 3 ideas for you to creatively alarm your children and educate them on the travel of plastics through time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can use the items collected at the beach for crafting like this one;  You may download the sea animals sketches<\/a> designed by Biologist Lucia Fanini and find crafting inspiration to finish the unfinished animal<\/g> drawings<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may familiarize yourselves with the sea animals and the dangers they are facing. For example, check the games and the educational resources for sea turtle (Caretta Caretta<\/em>) provided at Medasset<\/a> website or find out about the beach trash homes of the Blueberry hermit crabs in Okinawa, Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch together with your family a movie with environmental messages, such as \u2018The Lorax\u2019 or a documentary on sea creatures (the Blue Planet II collection<\/a> by BBC is a good choice).  Read a short story to pre-school kids or give<\/g> to older children a book to read in the holidays, like the Planet Secret Agents of Eleni Andreadi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you suggest another way to educate children about plastic pollution? We would love to learn more ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was written by:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lucia Fanini,\nBiologist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olympia Papadopoulou,\nEnvironmentalist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ioanna\nSerafeimidou, Family Friendly Culture Advocate & \u0392logger<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The micro-initiative \u00abNetworking against plastic pollution\u00bb starts from the intention to tightly integrate actions against plastic pollution into everyday life.  The blogs \u2018Thepaperboat\u2019 (dedicated to traveling with children in Greece) and \u2018Pigolampides\u2019 (about family lifestyle in Thessaloniki) under the coordination of Tero and in collaboration with the marine biologist Lucia Fanini (associate of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research) initiate actions that will last until November 2019. The aim is to enhance the awareness of families & local organisations (i.e. non-experts) on the issue of plastic pollution and trigger their engagement in project activities. The micro-initiative is funded by the \u00abBeyond Plastic Med initiative (BeMed)\u00bb jointly sponsored by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the Tara Expeditions Foundation, Surfrider Foundation Europe and the Mava Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

**  This document was produced with the financial assistance of Beyond Plastic Med<\/a>. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of Tero<\/a> Single Member PC and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, Beyond Plastic Med or its founders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does it ever happen to you to find a plastic piece buried in the sand? We would say it’s very likely.. It may come from badly behaved beachgoers, brought in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[41],"tags":[49,48,46,47,50],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":775,"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions\/775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terra-nation.com\/beach-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}