At 8:30 in the morning on February 2nd, World Wetlands Day, members of the ReefKeepers service group gathered at school to set up for the plastic patrol. By 9:00 we began signing people in and giving out gloves to people; by the time everyone was ready we had over 40 members of our school community signed up and no more gloves left to give. Our objective was to clean up our neighbourhood, more specifically our waterways, in order to reduce the likelihood of the  plastic to end up in the ocean. Additionally, through doing an audit of the companies we found we could try to raise awareness at target companies.

Although Alex, the co-leader of ReefKeepers, was the leader in the initiative, Ms. Clover, Alex and I put in extra hours to ensure that everything was in place for the day. The Saturday beforehand we used the maps in order to check if the routes planned were feasible, how long it takes, and potential safety concerns that need to be mentioned.

On the day, after a quick debrief explaining our objectives and safety precautions needed, we separated everyone into three different groups to go onto either the blue, green or yellow route. We picked up the rice bags for collection before I led my group on the blue route, heading out of the back entrance of school we immediately found plastic on the sides of the road, so we quickly got to work. Despite walking only 1-2km we had managed to collect 10 full rice bags of assorted trash that we found on the road but also in the drainage ditches on the side of the road.

When we arrived back at school the other two groups were already busy sorting the plastic found into different companies and the other trash into different types. Here we began the brand audit and counted the amount and type of plastics found from each company. We found that the highest contributors to plastic pollution in our area by brand were: Nestle, Maliban, Anchor, Kotmale, Highland, Perfetti Van Melle, Munchee, the Coca Cola Company and Gold Leaf tobacco.

In the following Reefkeeper sessions, Alex uploaded all the data collected to breakfreefromplastic, the website that inspired us to do the plastic patrol event in the first place. We packed the trash into boxes and sent them to the companies in order to convince them to create sustainable packaging for their products. I wrote a letter that we sent alongside the box that encouraged the company to reconsider how they are affecting the environment and ways they can manage solutions. I also created Instagram posts to share our findings and call out the companies.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• A major learning outcome is organisational skills that were necessary in order to plan an event that was safe and effective
• Knowledge of the amount of plastic and main plastic polluters in our local neighbourhood
• I improved on my leadership skills through being in charge of the group on my route