Together with Surfrider Foundation Australia and in support of their collaborative No Plastic Please Avalon 2015 campaign, local organisation Living Ocean hosted their first Boomerang Bags sewing bee on Tuesday 20 January at Avalon Community Centre.
Launched in partnership with Barrenjoey High School, No Plastic Please is an initiative that aims to create awareness about the impact of plastic pollution on our oceans. Their goal is to create a positive behaviour change within our community by encouraging more sustainable consumption of items such as: plastic bags, bottles and coffee cup lids.
The initiative has been presented to schoolchildren in a number of local schools by local ‘heroes, – professional surfers and body boarders, as well as film directors, who act as spokespeople for the campaign. This has been successful in both allowing children to understand that their choices have an impact, and in creating advocates of the children themselves.
Additionally, Living Ocean hold film nights, lectures and talks about the subject, often in partnership with the producers and other relevant organizations, which are attended by the wider community.
Living Ocean are working with the Avalon/Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce as well as local shopkeepers, to offer more sustainable packaging. The Boomerang Bags made are offered for use, and reuse, instead of the plastic bags which are responsible for the demise of much of our marine life and the shorebirds that live alongside our waterways. A number of local businesses will be stocking these colourful bags and you can take these instead of the plastic - if other businesses in Pittwater want to stock them they're more then welcome to contact the Living Ocean team and rid the whole of Pittwater of plastic bags - what a great idea!
Boomerang Bags was founded by Tania Potts and Jordyn de Boer in 2013. Since then this return to what was best in the first place has spread and more communities are taking on the challenge to rid themselves of the bag that will take several generations to disappear and even then won’t be gone totally.
Living Ocean's campaign is funded by donations, ticket sales and by the sale of recyclable water bottles and other products, all available for sale both in their shop and in local outlets.
Living Ocean have a fund raising Film Night coming up in a few weeks – see poster on this page, and more Sewing Bees are scheduled for this year: the dates are below, as well as some night time session due to popular demand, may see Avalon become Plastic Free this year.
Living Ocean Sewing Bees for Boomerang Bags - 2015 Schedule
• 3-Feb
•17-Feb
• 03-Mar
• 17-Mar
• 31-Mar
• 14-Apr
• 28-Apr
• 12-May
• 26-May
• 09-Jun
• 23-Jun
Anyone who can sew, cut or wishes to be involved in some shape of form is welcome to attend.
Find out more at: www.livingocean.org.au/what-we-do on their Facebook page , Twitter or via Instagram: living_ocean
Let’s do it Avalon and Pittwater – let’s be Plastic Free by the end of 2015.
If you’d like to get involved contact Kim on 0404 030 553 kim@livingocean.org.au or Jess on 0449 045 916 operations@surfrider.org.au
For all our thousands of readers from all over Australia; Do you want to bring Boomerang Bags to your local area?
Boomerang Bags will provide you with the resources you need, including a step-by-step guide to effectively implementing the initiative, and ongoing support along the way. See: http://boomerangbags.org/be-involved/bring-boomerang-bags-to-your-community/
Annabelle, Laurel and Felicity on Sewing Machines, Marjee on Ironing duties, Carol, Kim and Robbi on scissors/label info duties