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Happy World Ocean’s Day 2020

For World Oceans Day 2020, Conservation Volunteers is calling on our community to join the global conservation movement to #ProtectOurHome and help ensure a healthy future for our blue planet.  

Oceans are home to around 80% of life on Earth and they provide more than half of the oxygen we breathe. The life in our oceans is under threat from human activities including overfishing, pollution from land based and marine industries, and litter from our towns and cities. This is disastrous for the creatures that call our oceans home, as well as putting human life at risk as billions of us around the world depend on life below the waves for food, medicine and our livelihoods.

One of the biggest threats to life below water is human-created waste known as ocean litter, also called marine debris, making its way into the ocean. There are many different types of litter that end up in our oceans, such as food packaging, medical waste, glass, cigarette butts and aluminium cans.  

The vast majority of ocean litter is composed of plastic, which can take hundreds of years to biodegrade or never truly degrade at all. Instead, much of the plastic breaks down into tiny particles called microplastics - roughly the size of a grain of rice. Plastic ocean litter causes serious and significant impacts to ocean wildlife, with many animals eating the litter mistakenly as food, causing starvation and widespread poisoning of these animals and others that eat them. The damaging effects of ocean litter travel through the entire food chain, from tiny plankton all the way up to us humans.

There are many ways these types of litter can end up in the ocean. Together we are taking action to remove the waste that has accumulated, as well as stopping sources of ocean litter across Australia. This is critical to tackling one of the world’s most solvable global problems, from our own backyard.  

This World Oceans Day, Conservation Volunteers Australia is launching #SeaToSource – an initiative aimed at empowering people to take action in their local communities to find and reduce sources of ocean litter, and ultimately stop it from entering the waterways.  

By getting involved in #SeaToSource you will be given access to practical tools to influence change in your community and support the movement to tackle ocean litter at its source. Whether you want to engage with local cafes to change packaging, persuade a council to install cigarette butt bins, or get your school to reduce its waste – you are the champion we need to create change.

From local community champions creating change, to beach clean ups, school competitions, innovation challenges and more, #SeaToSource is launching on World Ocean Day as we believe that to #ProtectOurHome we need everyone in Australia to get involved in whatever way they can. 

This year’s World Oceans Day theme is innovation for a sustainable ocean and we’re hoping that through #SeaToSource we can inspire you to be innovative and creative on your journey to keeping our beaches oceans clean and pristine by reducing ocean litter, not just today, but every day.

Find out more about getting involved in caring for our oceans with #SeaToSource!