Look closer
I am usually very fascinated by the deep blue, the never ending sea. However I will dedicate this column to something small. Even though it’s small size, it has had the greatest impact on me. I’m not sure I’ll ever see the beach in the same way again.
decade ago, I decided to dedicate my life to educating people and cleaning up the environment. I am very curious as a person and not a day goes by where I don’t learn new things or facts. There will most likely never be a day when I stand up and say, “That’s it, I know it all”. This curiosity has led me to go from ‘just’ cleaning up, to educating children and adults as well as promoting zero-waste lifestyles. My curiosity also got me working with other NGOs.
I think we all remember the sea turtle at Golden Bay that laid eggs. I was one of the volunteers guarding those eggs on 12-hour shifts, on some occasions alone.
At one point I started sieving the sand through my fingers and this tiny little pearl appeared in my palm. Then another one, and another one. The beach was full of those tiny pearls. How could I have missed them before?
I researched them straight away and learnt that they were plastic nurdles - raw material from plastic production that had somehow escaped into the marine environment. I started collecting them and at this point I thought they were only bad for the marine life. It would turn out to be far worse.
I kept on collecting these tiny nurdles on every beach visit. People would look at me, some curious ones approached me and asked me what I was collecting. I educated people on the nurdles’ presence and the importance of removing them.
Last weekend, nearly two years after I discovered them, I found out that there is a whole webpage dedicated to them. Then I learnt that they do not just contain normal plastic. This is where the story takes a bad turn. This is where you should start really paying attention.