Ambassadors Environmental Day

30 TBUC Good Relations Ambassadors, made up from a partnership with The Executive Office and Education Authority TBUC Camps Programme, and those from the partnership of Dept. for Communities and Co Operation Ireland, Uniting Communities Programme will work together on a joint environmental day. In partnership with Keep NI Beautiful, they will complete a Tackling plastics workshop which will look at the problems of marine litter, how it gets into the oceans, the effects on humans and wildlife. There will be a Group activity on how long it takes various litter items to break down, an explanation of the Marine litter survey and team quiz on the top ten items found when we do the beach audits. They will also complete a marine litter audit of the beach followed by a beach clean-up/microplastics search. Marine litter, especially plastics, is becoming a huge problem which increasingly is affecting humans and wildlife. Studies are showing that millions of sea creatures are dying each year due to marine litter and humans are consuming more and more microplastics, some reports estimate up to almost 40lbs over a lifetime. The workshop aims to raise awareness of how it gets into our waterways and into the food system and hopefully encourage the young people to think about their plastic use. The audit that will be carried out is the same as the one Keep NI Beautiful carry out quarterly for DAERA, and the data from it will be added to the report which Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful Eco Schools complete as part of their coastal schools project.