Sustainability, sea life and us

Pupils in Congresbury have been busy learning all about the threats to wildlife living in our seas and rivers this week as part of our Spawn to be Wild project funded by Bristol Water.

After learning about the amazing life cycle of the eel and the fantastic journey they make across the Atlantic sea, pupils then learnt about all the hazards they face from humans.  

Wrington Primary School learning about the waste timeline

Pupils from St Andrews Primary try to work out how long our rubbish takes to break down in the sea

Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales, and other marine mammals, and more than 1 million seabirds die each year from ocean pollution and eating or being tangled in plastic waste.  This waste tends to accumulate in areas of slow spiraling water and along the coastlines.  One current has collected a "plastic island" which is the size of Texas covered in rubbish and up to 6 metres deep into the sea.

Pupils were shocked to find out that some items would never break down and heat up whilst floating on the top of the water and let off nasty pollutants into the water.  For example a big piece of plastic can break into many small pieces of plastic once it has been hit by UV rays whilst floating on top of the surface - this means that fish and other marine life can ingest these small traces of plastic which will kill then.  

Definitely made us all think about what else we can do to recycle and make sure we reduce our waste.  Our eels have become like pets and it would be awful to think of them suffering from our waste.