In an opportunity to make a difference, Fjällräven and Take 3 for the Sea partnered to host a Sydney CBD Clean-up to connect people back to nature, and nature for a greener scene.
We always hope to leave basecamp in better condition than we found it. As a community, we did just that. We worked towards making it clean, green and in the end – we left it at its best scene.
On April 10th, we experienced something we haven’t in a while. A gathering – and better, a gathering for good. Partnering with Australian charity Take 3 for the Sea, piece by piece we as a collective removed around 10,000 pieces of litter from Wynyard Park and its surrounding area, away from our streets and away from our seas.
At first glance, the park did not appear to be heavily littered. However, once the groups started looking more closely, the true situation became apparent.
Hannah Regan of Take 3 said, “The participants collected a huge amount of rubbish. It consisted of the usual suspects, such as cigarette butts, plastic packaging, and face masks... Interestingly, the clean-up also highlighted the abundance of an emerging problematic litter source, e-cigarettes (also known as vapes).”
The clean-up took place over the course of an hour and a half, with approximately 200 people participating in that time. A total of 9816 items were collected, of which 54.6% were cigarette butts. The next major litter source was unsurprisingly plastic packaging which accounted for 17.8% of the total litter collected.
Seeing people work together for nature, searching far and wide, looking avidly for every piece they could collect – it’s a hopeful sight to see amongst the usual busyness of the city scape. To think, an amount of this magnitude collected from an hour and a half– how great our impact would be if we continued.
Each step forward, we set our way for a better tomorrow, treading lightly, and enjoying nature – litter free. Over 8 million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean every year. Only 9% has been recycled while the other 91% sits in landfill, floats in our oceans, and surrounds our homes.
Plastic is an everyone problem. Animals mistakenly ingest plastic believing it’s a food source, our air continues to contaminate, as well as in our land and sea and in recent findings, micro-plastics have been found in our bloodstream through the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. It’s an everyone problem. Understanding that, we realise that with freedom to roam, so too, comes our responsibility to play our part and keep litter out of nature.
So, we aligned our vision, values, and there it came to fruition – the Take 3 for the sea alignment. In the opportunity to make a difference, the event brought people back together, and together we made our way to a cleaner and greener tomorrow.
Let’s delve deeper.
How great if we continued in the events footsteps, aligning with Take 3’s vision of taking 3 pieces of rubbish with you when you leave any place, any space and there, you really have made a big difference. We’re moving towards a brighter future, together. We’re supporting nature, forever. We’d like to thank our friends from Take 3 for the Sea for organising this clean-up.
Here’s to this momentum. Forward we go.
