This reposted blog relates to my story ‘Shelley and Rustle’ from ‘The Story Tree’ CD, in which ‘Shelley’ a Leatherback turtle, eats ‘Rustle’ the plastic bag Rustle. The story tells of this misadventure and what happens next.

The post below was written by 9 year old Kailani who lives with her family on K’gari or Fraser Island. I just connected with her passionately nature-loving family after they ordered my CD’s ‘The Story Tree’ and ‘Reaching for the Moon’. Inspired by her mother Bianca’s blog, Kailani, started one of her own ‘Kailani’s Island Life’! Pretty impressive!

Kailani’s mum Bianca wrote this about their response to that story:  ‘Kailani, Iluka and I have been delighting in the beautiful stories and songs of Jenni Cargill-Strong recently – they are truly wonderful. The messages in these stories seem to embrace so much of what we value and the vision we have for our world. This story about a plastic bag is fabulous and fits perfectly with the Take 3 for the Sea project we did and our campaign to encourage businesses to become plastic bag free. Listen here.’

Be inspired by Kailani’s passion for the environment.

Take 3 for the Sea Project Part 3

This final “Take 3 for the Sea” post is about how much rubbish we actually collected, if you like numbers you will like this post 🙂

After just 9 days of collecting rubbish this is what we found!

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Look at allllll this rubbish!!!!!

Where did it all come from?

A lot of people think the rubbish has washed up from Asia or dropped here on K’gari. Yes most of it is washed up but from Sydney and Brisbane not Asia. There is a current called the northern inshore drift which starts around Sydney and pushes north.

Some of the rubbish is also dropped here like beer bottles, cans, plastic bags and food wrappers. 4 left foot thongs were also dropped here and left behind, ha ha 🙂

What I learnt from the project.

  • I learnt that the little pieces of rubbish are as dangerous as the big pieces maybe even more dangerous.
  • I also learnt that we need to care for our planet because its the only one we have to live on forever

I have made this little video to share with you all.

 

What can you do to help?
  • I have written to the local Mayor to ask about Hervey Bay becoming a plastic bag free town, we have already had people tell us they will write a letter as well. You can write to your local Mayor and ask if your town will become plastic bag free and tell others to do the same, every little bit helps.
  • You can also reduce your consumption, especially at this time of year when people feel like they have to get their friends and family presents.
  •  Pick up rubbish when you see it and remember together we can make a difference  🙂

Facts about our collection:

  • 421 pieces of rubbish could be easily identified and I estimated that we collected about 500 more pieces than that.
  • 33 of the pieces we collected could be easily recycled. That’s less than 10%!
  • Iluka and I are reusing 58 pieces in our games. That close to 15%
  • We collected 20 plastic bags and 88 pieces of plastic wrapping. That’s 108 pieces of plastic in total!!!!  This is the type of stuff that makes turtles sick 🙁
  • We have also collected 68 pieces of plastic rope and 85 pieces of polystyrene!!! That’s a lot.
  • We have collected close 1000 thousand pieces of rubbish!!!!

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