School holidays are here with a vengeance……its winter which
would generally limit the options of activities available to children to being
stuck in four walls, forgetting about their inside voices and causing parents
to suffer a small aneurysm of self as their stress levels rise……oh hum…… the
frustrations of parenthood…..
Yesterday I watched frustrated parents such as these battle
with their hyperactive kids in the cinema cues and decided to myself the second
I saw sunshine I was taking my little monster out into the wild….and today we
were blessed with such sunshine, amongst the winter chill the sun slowly
dominated the cloudy sky and within hours it was clear blue and we were ready
to walk barefoot to the beach near our home.
Excited to get some sand in our hair and wind between our
toes (or maybe the other way around) we tottered off to the water to play….but
upon our arrival there I was absolutely stunned by the amount of rubbish littering
the sand. Plastic bottles, old goggles, thongs, bits of crates, plastic bags
and all sorts of wrappers and netting…..all deadly towards our sea life.
Plastic itself is made from Coal, Oil and Gas…..Fossil Fuels…..essentially its poison……
and there are countless articles at our disposal to know the effects that this
kind of litter has on our ecosystem. We are not new to what litter is doing to
our planet and I know from personal experience that being a ‘litter bug’ is a
wrong doing that has been drummed into me since childhood….it’s just not
socially acceptable in our culture….but it happens.
One thing that I have learned from working with the Eco
Faeries for near to 5 years now is that there is no point in resisting the
problem and drawing attention to what is wrong in life……Eco Faeries move in a
positive wave, we lead by example and become part of the solution….in the words of John Lennon “Be
the change you want to see in the world".
And so I grabbed two plastic bags I found stuck in amongst
the plants in the dunes and I taught my daughter how to ‘be the change’….we
filled those bags to the brim, and I educated her on what things were as we
went, what could be recycled, the effects that certain things may have on the
sea life, how nets could trap fish and drown them…..how bags could fill a sea
turtles stomach and it would starve to death, how plastic was non-compostable
and that it would float in the sea for millions of years if we didn’t pick it
up and recycle it, not the mention how much prettier the beach is when it is
not lettered with crap…. It even turned into an educational session on safe sex
as we used a stick to manoeuvre a used condom into my bag….. YUK! We made a game out of it seeing who could spot something first, guess what it was and if it was recyclable or non recyclable.....
We carried all that we could up to the bins, separated them
into recyclables and non-recyclables (except for the condom…that was launched
well into the bottom of the bin……..eeeew) and we walked away knowing we had
done some good that day. I had educated my child, we had gotten some sun and
fresh air, and the beach was CLEAN giving our wildlife a better chance at life.
As we walked up the driveway and into the house to wash our hands my little one
actually skipped along laughing “mummy can we save the world some more tomorrow….I
wanna do that AGAIN!!!”
So if you are looking for a good educational activity to do
with your children this school holidays…its absolutely free….it is good for
your soul…..it is good for the planet….create some quality time with your kids,
grab some bags and go to your local park or beach and pick up rubbish!!!!
Be the change….and have fun doing it! J
EarthyFae
xxx
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