Marine Debris
Our contribution
Join an Event Near You
Organisations Acting on Marine Debris

We wanted to go on an adventure. A really big one. A life changing challenge. The Inside Passage was perfect! As ocean lovers, we wanted to make our challenge a really meaningful one, one that gave back to the ocean. That was how we decided to dedicate our paddle to the ocean. Without the ocean our adventure would not be.

Marine Debris

Most of us don’t read all the facts, it is a lot to get through. Here is a simple video that gives you the starting idea:

The facts from The Tangaroa Blue Foundation
You can watch an important documentary “A Plastic Ocean” for $6 on youtube

Our Contribution

We completed our 3 month expedition single-use-plastic-free (excluding one emergency packet of rice!). We raised AUD$20,600 for Tangaroa Blue and The Living Oceans Society. We contributed to a 3 day Young Women in Ocean Literacy and Leadership Camp. We hosted multiple community clean ups and events.

Join an event near you!

In Australia: The Tangaroa Blue Foundation – https://www.facebook.com/pg/tangaroa.blue/events/

In Canada: The Living Oceans Society – https://www.facebook.com/pg/livingoceans/events

Organisations Acting on Marine Debris

Tangaroa Blue

The Tangaroa Blue Foundation is an Australian marine debris program that works to protect our oceans Australia wide. The Tangaroa Blue Foundation has been running a program called the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI) for the last 12 years. This program not only tackles the extensive task of removing man-made debris from our coastlines, but strives to target the source of this rubbish and prevent it getting into our marine environment in the first place. In fact, their motto is;

If all we do is clean up, that is all we will ever do

This mission is accomplished through thousands of volunteers and hard-working organisers who put all the information into the Australian Marine Debris Database, which is essentially a record of every single piece of rubbish collected as part of their clean-ups. Every. Single. Piece.

Amazingly (and terrifyingly), since the program started, there have been 7.3 million pieces of debris removed from beaches and input into the database. That’s INSANE!! From this information, they are able to identify what is littering our coasts, where it comes from, and they can then work with stakeholders to reduce marine debris from entering our oceans.

For the last 5 years between May and September the Tangaroa Blue Foundation has been organising week-long expeditions to Cape York, Australia. Many beaches in this beautiful area are not accessed by public, however are still littered with rubbish. Through collaborations between local Traditional Owners, Rangers and volunteers, approximately 12 tonnes of rubbish have been removed from the beaches in just 2016 alone

Website: http://www.tangaroablue.org/

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/tangaroa.blue

Email: info@tangaroablue.org

Living Oceans

Living Oceans hosts a program called ‘Clear the Coast’. Similar to Tangaroa Blue Foundation it focuses on clearing coastal systems of the debris that wash up from our oceans. Clear the coast runs expeditions throughout the year in the area that we will be paddling in. We are excited to be sending some of our fundraising their way, but even more so we have plans in the tunnel to finish our paddle with a clean up!

“t’s a sad fact that no matter where one goes ashore these days or how often and how many volunteers clean beaches, the debris—mostly plastic—keeps coming, breaking down into smaller and smaller bits from the energy of the waves and the sun. During its time in the ocean, plastics collect organic pollutants from the seawater and those, too, enter the food web. The marine life affected will suffer a variety of ills, some of which will be passed down from generation to generation. Washed up ropes and nets pose an immediate entanglement threat to wildlife. It all must be removed.” Clear the Coast

Check out this video to see a bit about what they do;