Micro plastic: MACRO Problem - a CITO (Taranaki) Cache In Trash Out® Event

We’ve all heard of how devastating micro plastic is to the environment, especially the seas and oceans.

Meet at the carpark near Paris Plage at 3:00PM as low tide is shortly after

This CITO will involve a slow walk along the 1.8 km High Tide shoreline between Te Henui rivermouth to Waiwhakaiho river to collect all the plastic we can find. We can then return to Paris Plage along the Coastal Walkway; a round trip of about 3.6km taking I would anticipate around two hours.

Most of us have been well aware of plastic pollution for a while, understanding that it creates a problem in the environment when animals ingest or get entangled in the plastic debris and die. "Microplastics" are plastics of less than 1 mm in size, formed by the fragmentation of larger plastic items when they are exposed to wind, waves and sunlight. Their small size makes them available for animals to ingest, and we have only learned about their devastating consequences recently. Scientists have documented hundreds of marine species eating microplastics. At the base of marine food webs, zooplankton are eating microplastics. As bigger animals consume the zooplankton, the plastics and the contaminants it contains are transferred to higher trophic levels. Plastics have been found in krill, copepods, crabs, oysters, mussels, sea birds, fishes, seals and whales. Left is a collection I picked up at another local beach recently

There are numerous articles online, so it is not necessary to reiterate it here. Feel free to read reports from Greenpeace, Our Seas, Our Future charity, Sea Cleaners charity.