Promoting plastic recycling in Rosebank
ROSEBANK – The Dyer Island Conversation Trust and Volkwagen lit up The Zone @ Rosebank Mall to highlight the harm of plastic.
The Dyer Island Conservation Trust and Volkswagen lit up a lighthouse at The Zone @ Rosebank Mall to highlight the dangers of plastic waste in oceans.
The event, held on 30 November, highlighted some of the issues the trust faces and encouraged guests to recycle all their plastic waste.
The trust, which is supported by Volkswagen, works to discover species and protect them while also educating communities on how to protect their environment.
Rather than lighting up a Christmas tree for the approaching holiday season, the marketing director of Volkswagen, Meredith Kelly, explained that they had chosen to light up a lighthouse instead. The large lighthouse, made up entirely of plastic bottles, lit up whenever someone placed a piece of plastic in a recycling bin.
“Instead of lighting up a big Christmas tree, we decided to bring you a massive lighthouse, a structure which warns you of great dangers, and we thought that this was a clever way of warning you of the dangers that are with us every day.”
Kelly added that as a large organisation they had chosen to support a small organisation which had made a large impact and which is also representative of the harms of plastic.
Alison Towner, a marine biologist who works with the trust said, “We’re losing about a 100 million sharks a year and every little piece of plastic needs to be considered before it’s put out into the environment. If we can influence just a few people about how they affect the environment when they put plastic into it, that’s very powerful.”
Pinkey Ngewu, operations administer for the trust, highlighted the importance of teaching children from a young age the importance of recycling and taking care of their environment.
“During our last beach clean-up, we collected more than 800 pieces of straws in less than two hours, so we need to think about that when we buy a drink. We need to think about the way we do things, is there really a need to use plastic?” asked Ngewu.
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