Macroplastic

This weekend, three members of Team ColieCo joined the @sagresbeachclean collective to clean and survey the plastic waste on #PraiaDoCordoama, a secluded, beautiful Blue Flag beach close to ColieCo HQ.  Volunteers who joined took 1m x 1m quadrats to comb, collecting #macroplastic, #microplastic and #nurdles (pre-production plastic balls) together, before weighing the haul from each square metre. What we found was pretty jaw-dropping: hand-combing to just a shallow depth, the quadrats turned out an average close to *500g* of plastic waste. We collected scores of plastic straws, fishing rope, bottle tops, polystyrene, a needle (thankfully in a plastic case), sections of plastic cartons and bags, mountains of nurdles, and hundreds and hundreds of unidentifiable microplastics.   The area we surveyed was on the edge of the intertidal zone, meaning that high tides here would be free to churn this sand, potentially carrying kilograms upon kilograms of macro and microplastics into - or back into - the Atlantic Ocean. We've written previously in the ColieCo Blog about plastic waste in our oceans, about the damage it is doing, and about what we're doing at ColieCo HQ to help ensure we don't contribute to the problem - and we've got an exciting new development to bring you on this this very week! We all know the least we can do as individuals to help combat the problem: first and foremost by limiting purchases of products containing or packaged in single use plastics to an absolute minimum, and by recycling carefully and conscientiously. This is an issue we can address, and beat, together. #saveouroceans #savetheplanet #saynotosingleuseplastic #bethechange #plasticawareness #beatplasticpollution #sustainability #beachclean    (at Vila Do Bispo Praia Da Cordoama) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPi6A8uhbe1/?utm_medium=tumblr