By Margaret Maccoll
Year 9 student Zoe Gralton has decided to spread awareness of the growing plastic problem by screening A Plastic Ocean tonight at Sunshine Beach State High School (SBSH).
As a member of the youth turtle focus group at Sea Life Mooloolaba and being the daughter of Boomerang Bags founder, Desiree, she is well aware of the issue.
“I have made a lot of connections and seen a lot of things that are hard to ignore, such as the increase of plastics washing up on our beaches and turtles that cannot dive down for food due to the ingestion of plastics,” she said.
“It made me really sad to see how little people knew about such a big problem.
“Becoming a member of the youth turtle group allowed me to meet some likeminded kids around the same age as me and see how they are trying to fix the same problems; this really motivated me to organise the screening.
The film shows the extent of the plastic problem. More than one million plastic bags are used every minute, resulting in 500 billion bags used annually. Plastic waste is collecting in our oceans at an alarming rate; there are no signs of it stopping.
“We are now producing nearly 300 million tonnes of new plastic every year, and half of this is designed for single-use. We need solutions to our plastic problem,“ Zoe said.
Zoe is asking the Noosa community to “Rethink Plastic”.
“Plastic Oceans aims to change the way we deal with plastic waste by challenging society’s perception that this indestructible substance can be treated as ’disposable’ and change the world’s attitude to plastic within one generation,” she said.
The screening will be at PA Block at SBSH at 5.30pm for a 6pm start. Bring a gold coin donation to support the youth turtle focus group, wear pyjamas, bring down a beanbag, blanket, pillow and get cosy, and register online at bit.ly/2u76PGB
