Imagine the plastic we see beside the roads, rail lines, footpaths . . . then imagine it floating on and below the sea to be breathed in by fish, whales, jelly fish, crabs, whales, little critters there . . . in pieces as small as the tip of a pen or pin, getting in the lungs and then killing oceans of fish.

These folk do – Responsible Runners – and every day they prevent some of it getting into the ocean – Responsible Runners.

This is an extract from their website:

“The Australian coastal region is world-class, serving host to millions of residents and visitors throughout the year, especially during the summer, who unfortunately leave a tremendous amount of rubbish behind. Much of this consists of plastic, which is made from oil and, in its highly processed form, is virtually non-biodegradable. Over hundreds of years it slowly photodegrades into smaller and smaller plastic pieces fish, birds, and other marine life easily mistake for food, severely disrupting the ocean food chain and posing serious entanglement hazards for all sea life. There are now 5 irreversible continental gyres of swirling bits of plastic in our oceans as a direct result of our reliance on short-sighted convenience over long-term solutions. A recent study even found over 50,000 pieces of plastic in only 1 square kilometer of Antarctic waters, far from any area of human habitation or commercial activity. Disposable plastics are quite simply not part of the long-term solution we so desperately need.”

With a few wonderful exceptions the barren political Australian landscape is populated by politicians who actively say ‘NO’ to stopping plastic recycling being mandated, banning of plastic bags and stopping this ocean wounding rubbish at source.

Each time I look at a politician I wonder how they look at themselves in the mirror.  My guess is they look at themselves and imagine how they’d look in the paper or TV, and never as a person who kills whales, fish, and ocean life.  And that’s probably how they see the world and themselves.