www.iska.ie

On my Holidays this year in Wexford and I could not believe the amount of plastics and other rubbish washed up on the tideline.
I did my bit to try and take some of the stuff - but for a bigger impact
you need lots of people.

The Big Beach Clean 2013 will form part of an International Coastal Clean Up run by the Ocean Conservancy for which An Taisce is the national coordinator for Ireland. The Big Beach Clean weekend is a clean up with a difference; all groups are encouraged to record information about the amount and type of litter found. All the information from participating countries is collected and used by the Ocean Conservancy to guide marine policy and engage people in protecting the ocean and its wildlife for future generations.
See website:
http://www.bigbeachclean.ie/

Perhaps ISKA Could get organised on a regional basis
and tackle a beach or shoreline in your area that needs attention.
As we have kayaks and can travel to more difficult to reach places (like Domestos ) maybe go for an in-shore island or a remote beach
that you know has a lot of rubbish washed up.

In Dublin we did this on Dalkey Island some years back and go assistance from the local concil to remove the rubbish collected and provide us with bags and gloves too.

Hope some of you out there will take up the challenge
Alan

:laugh:

Good idea Alan. Count me in. I see that plastics may not hang around as long as originally thought. Thankfully. There is a downside however!!

I quote (full article link below, not long; worth a read): Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field. Dr Mincer and Dr Amaral-Zettler found evidence of them on their marine plastic, too.

They noticed many of their pieces of debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, and that in several cases these bacteria were dividing and thus, by the perverse arithmetic of biological terminology, multiplying. Though the two researchers have not yet proved the bugs in the pits are actually eating the plastic, that hypothesis seems a good bet. And if they are, it suggests plastic pollution in the ocean may not hang around as long as has often been feared.

Less encouragingly, Dr Mincer and Dr Amaral-Zettler also found cholera-like bacteria in their tiny floating ecosystems. Both fish and seabirds act as vectors for cholera (the former bring it into human settlements when caught by fishermen, the latter when resting ashore or nesting), so anywhere that such creatures might pick up cholera bugs is something worth keeping an eye on.


http://www.economist.com/news/science-a ... astisphere
Sennen