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On Friday 6th July, in celebration of Plastic Free July, we officially launched TEC's exciting new plastic pollution program, AUSMAP, at Manly Cove. AUSMAP's Program Director Dr Michelle Blewitt was interviewed live on the ABC Breakfast Show with Wendy Harmer early that morning, discussing the launch details and why plastic pollution in our oceans is such a major problem.  Meanwhile, AUSMAP's Research Scientist Dr Scott Wilson and his students were demonstrating to a crowd of media and other guests on the beach at Manly Cove, how AUSMAP participants will collect and identify microplastics. Also at the water's edge the STRAWklers, two plastic activists in wet suits, took a dive for the media, resurfacing with handfuls of plastic rubbish, to illustrate just how much plastic has become endemic to Sydney's harbour. By 10:00am guests had begun to arrive, including James Griffin MP (Member for Manly), Greg Piper MP (Member for Lake Macquarie), Emily Dyball (policy advisor for Justin Field, Greens Member for the NSW Legislative Council), members of Environmental and Zoo Education centres and representatives from council, not-for-profit organisations and AUSMAP sponsors. After photo opportunities, the launch began with an opening speech from Total Environment Centre's (TEC) Director Jeff Angel, thanking all the partners and sponsors involved in the project, as well as the hardworking AUSMAP team. Mr Angel said he was  tremendously proud of how quickly the AUSMAP project had developed into a world-first initiative with huge potential. This was followed by Acknowledgement of Country by Lisa Wriley, thanking the Guringai people, the traditional owners of the Manly area.  Dr Michelle Blewitt then addressed attendees with an explanation of the project and how community and high school students will be critical to the project's success.  AUSMAP's Research Scientist, Dr Scott Wilson followed with a run through of the science behind measuring microplastics and how they are affecting our wildlife. Guests were then invited to the beach for a demonstration of the methodology for collecting, sorting and quantifying microplastic. After the informative demonstration, guests were invited into Manly Art Gallery & Museum for morning tea - with not a piece of plastic involved - provided by Infinity Bakery a member of one of our partners, Responsible Cafes.  Pastries included savoury scones, spinach and ricotta rolls and croissants; and in true Plastic Free July style and in support of Responsible Cafes, tea and coffee was served in mugs or BYO cups. Guests mingled during morning tea and were encouraged to help sort and identify the different types of microplastics collected from the morning's demonstration, and observe them under microscopes. With further media opportunities and more mingling in the Manly Art Gallery, guests slowly left as the launch came to an end. Over the next 24 hours AUSMAP hit the mainstream news cycle with extensive audio, video and print coverage on the ABC, a channel 7 news piece and even an article in the Chinese Epoch times. The STRAWklers media stunt proved very popular. Thank you to all those who joined for the launch of this fantastic initiative! Hope to see you all at our next AUSMAP event. Written by: Naomi Huynh (volunteer of AUSMAP) Photos: Rianti Bieler, Mel Liu and Naomi Huynh

Plastic Free July 2018 is coming up, and AUSMAP has some tips and tricks to help you reduce your reliance of single-use plastic so you can feel confident in taking on the challenge. Plastic Free July started as an office initiative in 2011 by the WMRC Earth Carers but now has become a non-for-profit Foundation and is a registered charity. The goal is to build a global movement that immensely reduces plastic consumption whilst improving recycling so we can all live in a world free of toxic plastic pollution. The Plastic Free July campaign raises awareness of our growing plastic problem while supporting behaviour changes by helping people to reduce single-use plastics. The challenge is undertaken by over 2 million people from 159 countries. Collectively participants chose to avoid single-use plastic packaging and/or target takeaway items (the Top 4: bags, bottles, straws and coffee cups) or go completely plastic-free for one day, one week, all of July or from now on. Participants can take the challenge as an individual, organisation, business and even as a school/college. To get you ready for the challenge, here are some of our top 5 tips on taking on the Plastic Free July Challenge: 1. Bags When the plastic bag was invented it was hailed as a miracle material. It was waterproof, strong, light, easy to store and most of all cheap. But fast forward to 2018,  and we are seeing 10 million plastic bags used and immediately discarded each day in Australia. They become one of the deadliest types of plastic pollution, ingested by aquatic animals  floating looking for jellyfish attracted by the chemicals in the plastic that smell like fish. Instead of using plastic bags for your shopping, an alternative is to bring a reusable fabric bag or even a box. For years Aldi has not given out free plastic bags to shoppers, and customers often walk out with a cardboard box filled with their groceries. And as of the 20th June 2018, the supermarket giant Woolworths has stopped giving out free plastic bags to customers. 2. Bottles Every year, we use approximately 1.6 million barrels of oil just to produce plastic water bottles that are going to be used once. Seems a bit wasteful of a finite resource we should be conserving, doesn't it? Instead of buying bottled water from the shops, you can drink water from a reusable water bottle, and just refill it when it's empty. Why should we pay for water, when it comes out out of the tap free? (NB: Even though you can refill a single-use bottle, it not recommended especially over a long period of time. These single-use bottles are made to be ONE use only. Chemicals in the plastic leech into the water when you constantly refill it, making it unsafe to keep drinking) 3. Straws Straws make drinking easy and even fun but plastic straws are major polluters of our oceans. They can even get lodged inside turtle's nostrils. There are so many straws in our oceans that the STRAWkle Squad (a group of keen beach enthusiasts who spend their time cleaning up Manly Cove) have found over 200 straws in one beach cleaning session after spending 45 minutes snorkelling and diving. An alternative to using straws when sipping your drink can be as simple as asking for no straw. Metal, glass, paper or even pasta straws work as the perfect sucking implement to complement any drink. 4. Coffee cups For some people, coffee runs in their blood, and they can't function without it. Even a paper coffee cup is coated with plastic on the inside. The paper may degrade but the plastic will stick around for a really long time. Let's not forget about the coffee cup lid, that is almost always made of plastic. It is estimated that Australia's ever-growing caffeine addiction has resulted in 3 billion disposable coffee cups ending up in landfill each year. Giving up your morning coffee is too much of a big ask, but bringing your own reusable keep cup/mug is easy. Some cafes even offer discounts if you bring your own reusable cup.  Responsible Cafes is an organisation that aims to encourage caffeine addicts to ditch the disposable coffee cup and use a reusable cup instead have an initiative going for Plastic Free July called Trash 4 Treasure. If you pick up a bucket of trash, you can exchange it for a free hot drink at participating cafes. You can find the list of cafes involved here: https://www.responsiblecafes.org/trash-4-treasure/ (NB: Recyclable cups are being made but production costs are high, and not all cafe owners are willing to pay the cost. Some disposable cups can be labelled to be sustainable but they can often be misleading for a number of reasons. Cups can be labelled as recyclable as the plastic-coated paper is recyclable but some councils do not accept coffee cups as part of their recycling process; compostable means that these cups are suitable for composting, however composting is not widely available in Australia, so unless the customer has access to household or community composts, the cup will end up in landfill; biodegradable coffee cups involve using a chemical additive in the oil-based plastic to break down the plastic lining when it is deprived of oxygen, however, there is a lack of scientific evidence to prove that this works. And it is adding chemicals to soil we don't want. 5. Plastic packaging In many cases, plastic packaging has a genuine function and prevents waste by protecting food from bacteria or sealing in moisture. But fruit and vegetables already come in a protective natural skin which decomposes quickly. Take an orange peel for example. The skin will break down in a few months but a polyethylene protective layer will last pretty much an eternity. Nor does plastic necessarily prolong the shelf life of produce. Prepacked orange segments last about four days, whilst a whole orange can last a month with it's skin still on. All of this for the convenience of not peeling an orange? So it really makes sense to avoid excessive packaged produce when you go to the supermarket. If people reject prepackaged fruit and vegetables, then the supermarkets will phase it out. So you do have a choice. There are many more ways that you can reduce your plastic usage, but these are our top 5. To get involved in Plastic Free July, you can click here: http://www.plasticfreejuly.org/ Go on, take on the challenge today! Even if it's just for one day. Written by: Naomi Huynh (volunteer of AUSMAP) Photos: Various (royalty free)

A chilly morning brought on some keen citizens from Bathurst to take part in the Training Day: Wetland Citizen Science Programs on Tuesday 29th May 2018 at Macquarie River in Bicentennial Park. AUSMAP was there! The day was run by the Western Rivers Environmental Education Network (WREEN) with an aim to provide fun and innovative research programs for the community. The program included a number of activities such as 'Scum School' an algae monitoring workshop run by the University of Technology (UTS), waterbird tracking with the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), and of course measuring microplastics with AUSMAP. AUSMAP's program involved working with Dr Scott Wilson. He taught people about what microplastics are and how they get into our water systems, including Macquarie River. Next they got stuck into finding microplastics along the banks of the river, which involved placing a quadrat down, and taking the top 2cm of sediment and sifting it to see the microplastics left behind. After sieving, the crew tipped out what was left in their sieve into a tray to identify and pick out microplastics. Even with a cold start, those who came did a terrific job in collecting valuable microplastic data for AUSMAP, were treated with a well deserved morning tea and lunch provided by WREEN. I'm sure everyone who attended had fun and learnt lots! Written by: Naomi Huynh (volunteer of AUSMAP) Photos: Dr Scott Wilson

AUSMAP is digging deep into Sydney's harbour beaches! Visited by keen swimmers who have jumped off yachts and by locals who want a quiet place to relax, Athol Beach is a small hidden gem with spectacular views of Sydney Harbour. It is also receiving more than its fair share of microplastic pollution. Students from James Busby High School have been tasked to investigate the secrets in the sand at Athol Beach and draw some conclusions about the implications for Sydney's water and wildlife. Run by Observatory Hill Environmental Education Centre (EEC) the fieldwork was part of the Stage 5 geography program, called Environmental Change and Management. In the program, students learn about environmental issues relating to marine ecosystems, what has caused these problems, the consequences and the extent of their impact. As James Busby High School decided to focus on microplastics for their program, the EEC enlisted the help of AUSMAP, so we sent our research scientist, Dr Scott Wilson to help facilitate the fieldwork. Following a talk by Dr Scott Wilson on where microplastics come from and the problems they cause, the students rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Some students even found bits of hard plastics without sieving. Most microplastics are brightly coloured making them easily identifiable. The beach was scattered with blue bits of hard plastic that resemble cog pieces from toys. After the microplastic sorting was finished and the data was recorded, the fieldwork ended with Dr Scott Wilson giving a debrief, prompting students to be less reliant on single-use plastics, and encouraging them to spread the word about the enormous impact plastic has on our oceans. Students from James Busby High School had learnt a great deal about microplastics from their field trip and the data they have collected will make an important contribution to AUSMAP and community understanding of the impact of plastics in Australia's oceans. Written by: Naomi Huynh (volunteer of AUSMAP) Photos: Dr Scott Wilson