Featured Image Credit: Sea Janitor via Facebook
Here’s a question for divers: how often do you see some type of trash, plastic, fishing gear, and lost or abandoned items when you’re under the water, exploring and taking in the amazing deep blue sea?
A little, a lot? Probably quite a bit, since about 8 million tons of trash ends up in the ocean per year.
That’s why Kate Wilkins, a diver and dive instructor in Adelaide, Australia decided to do a little something about it and in as many coastal waters along South Australia as possible.
Every day for the month of February, Wilkins decided that she would devote her time to dive down and collect trash using a mesh “catch” bag before bringing it up to the surface, photographing and recording her finds. She shared with ABC Adelaide that her goal was to focus on “jetties”— referring to bridges or piers— due to their popularity for fishing fishing and meeting spots, but not often diving. Which could lead to trash or other items that never get picked up and properly disposed of.
The plan, as Wilkins noted on her Instagram, is to keep the trash she collects all together. Then, “… after the month is done of cleaning I will dispose of everything in a sustainable manner.”
At the end of last month, just before her one-month mission began, Wilkins created a Gofundme hoping to raise money for “hire and transportation”, and she’s promised all other funds raised to be donated to Sea Shepherd and Project AWARE at the end of the month.
During this endeavor, Wilkins is also encouraging everyone to do their own part. For both divers and beach-goers alike all over the world, it helps to donate to marine-based charities, and whether or not you can dive for trash doesn’t matter too much… because merely picking up anything that doesn’t belong on a beach will go a long way to help the current problem of pollution that the ocean is facing.
You can keep up with Wilkins and her drive to dive on her Facebook page.