Finding garbage and reducing our own impact
Sunday, 16 May 2010 17:39
Written by Administrator
During last week’s Cast Your Vote you voted for us to document some of the garbage we find along the way. At first this seemed like a challenge. After all, this is still quite a beautiful and wild place. On closer look, we realized that it is not very hard to find garbage on the beaches and in the water. Dave’s video documents our biggest find so far. Be sure to watch that to find out about all the plastic, styrofoam, and debris we found washed up at one of our recent campsites in Johnstone Strait.
Here is a list of garbage we found at that campsite:
styrofoam bits—above the high tide line there was a layer of these bits about a foot thick.
3 plastic water bottles
2 plastic fuel bottles
1 Croc (size 13)
1 bumper for a boat
1 propane tank
1 aerosol can
1 shampoo bottle
4 lighters
1 giant block of styrofoam (that John used as a tent platform)
several pieces of plastic rope
plastic bags- to many to count
We have also been trying hard to reduce the amount of garbage that we produce. One way to do this is eating locally raised food. This is helpful in two ways. If we eat food that is grown nearby, fewer fossil fuels are burned in transporting the food to us and the food is not packaged in plastics. Now, when I say locally raised, I am talking about food from the ocean. That’s right. There is an abundance of food available to us if we just know how to look for it and collect it.
Dave has taken up fishing. After eating several Lingcod, we realize that this tastes way better than canned tuna. Also, it is not caught far away, canned, and then shipped to a town near us. Instead, Dave drops a fishing line in the water and if he is in the right spot, he catches dinner.
Oysters, clams, and mussels are also available in the intertidal zone. To harvest them, we just have to go for a walk in the intertidal zone and pry them off of rocks.
Crabs and prawns are more difficult for us to get on our own. We were fortunate enough to meet two people who shared their catch with us. The crabs and prawns require the use of traps, which are too big for us to transport in our kayaks.
A few days ago, when we were in Shoal Bay, we had the pleasure of a seafood feast. Locally caught prawns, crab, and oysters were on the menu. The meal was amazing. It not only tasted good, but we were glad to eat food that was harvested locally in a sustainable way.
We were hoping that you might be able to find out about more foods that come from the ocean. Do you have any recommendations for us?
Download this week's student response worksheet