One of my all time favourite books has to be ‘Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish’ by Michael Foreman.
This delightful children’s story was hugely influential on me when I was growing up – shaping an early environmental awareness and also nurturing a personal fascinating with cryptozoology. It is a story of how mankind has built a rocket to the stars and in doing so has destroyed his own planet. Whilst the character travels into space, planet earth smoulders and is covered in all the rubbish he left behind. All the rubbish reawakens the dinosaurs who are appalled at the state of planet earth and set about cleaning it up.
It’s a story of our time that’s even more relevant today than it was when it was first published. The images we see on the BBC Blue Planet series and in the media of seas and rivers chocked with plastic and sea creatures wrapped in plastic are quite chilling.
One of the ways iCASP has been able to play their own small part in helping to address this very real challenge has been through the River Aire Plastic capture mini project.
As environmental professionals I believe it is our duty to spread the message and lead by example: the 3 R’s are important now more than ever: Reduce, Re-use, recycle.
Duncan Fyfe, Programme Manager, iCASP