with thanks to Sandra Acheson for the update
Paddle Against Plastic
The Paddle Against Plastic morning last Sunday went extremely well and over 40 people attended. It was a wonderful family outing and next time we plan to hold a sausage sizzle afterwards. We’ll keep you posted once the next date has been confirmed.
Ian Thomson is the founder of Ocean Crusaders, the group who appeared on ABC’s War on Waste clearing out tons of rubbish from the Yarra River in Melbourne and to who we donated the $2,000. I would hope that some of you could gather your grandkids together and come and make a family outing next time. The kids all had great fun and it’s a wonderful way to teach them about their environment for the future.
Some people arrived with their own water craft and Ocean Crusaders provided others. Safety vests, rubber gloves and pick-er-upper sticks were also supplied. We donated some Boomerang Bags as prizes for the most interesting plastic items collected. The $2,000 will fund two of these river clean-ups and will contribute to cleaning the hull of the Ocean Crusaders barge.
Joondalup Councillor and WA coast care champion Mike Norman and his daughter Lisa spent precious holiday time helping out. Mike was extremely interested in our produce bags and took one with him.
We also took the opportunity of giving Sandy Bolton five Boomerang Bags for her to use and/or to promote.
Coles backflips
It’s hard to believe that, (1), people are complaining that they need more time to get used to having to take their own bags and (2), that Coles has capitulated to pressure. Good to see commonsense prevail in the end!
The orders keep coming…
Boomerang Bags Noosa now supply Council Libraries with 20 bags per fortnight instead of them asking for 50 bags at a time. Smaller regular quantities are easier for us to supply and as they are only “up the road”, we can deliver easily too.
The Montessori school has ordered 50 small bags which are already overlocked and we will finish adding handles by next Wednesday.
We haven’t seen the final numbers sold at the Winter Expo but now we have the Open Studios to add to our display at Wallace House. This runs from now until 26 August. I believe we are selling more bags from Wallace House since we left the “wall” of bags on display.
Karen at Closet Confidential has sold another pouffe filled with all the fabric offcuts from our bag-making, and Kerry bought the beautiful red one that Judy made. If anyone wants to make another, check out the upholstery fabric in the storeroom. Glenys brought in some fabric from the Smart Dog op shop and Cisca has made a square one with matching cushions which we are currently filling.
Don’t forget as long as we have some lightweight fabric such as net curtains, we will make “produce bags” to give away so if you want to give some to friends, please do.
Our happy screen printers
We are now planning to screen print every other Monday. Ian has made another screen printing set which will make it even quicker. And we’ve had another offer of help from Flea who says she has many years screen printing experience. She’s yet to agree a time to visit, but it will be good to have a back up for when Ian & Irene go away.
Above: Happy screen printers Russel, Karmen, Ian & Irene
Finally…
When someone tells you we are wasting our time as people will never give up plastic, why not mention it’s not only about plastic, but that producing and disposing of single use plastic is a wasted resource which could be put to better use elsewhere.
