Do-it-yourself bowls offer consciousness of plastic air pollution

Kate Hodgson helps make ghost rope bowls as a interest and will be providing then at Go Go Refill on July 10 in buy to spread consciousness about plastic pollution. Courtesy picture Kate Hodgson

SOUTH PORTLAND — Hoping to provide awareness to plastic air pollution, a South Portland resident will sell ghost rope bowls on July 10 at Go Go Refill at 64 E St.

Kate Hodgson, who life in Ferry Village, commenced selecting up plastic litter from South Portland and Cape Elizabeth beach locations a couple several years in the past, she said.

“Because of the beaches all-around South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, there’s a lot of ghost rope, rope which is washed ashore from fishermen and so forth, and I experienced observed people today make baskets out of them and imagined I could do it,” Hodgson mentioned.

The sale coincides with Plastic Absolutely free July, a world movement, she claimed. All funds elevated will go to the Plastic Air pollution Plan at Organic Methods Council of Maine.

“It’s more than the dollars,” she mentioned. “It’s raising recognition about how significantly plastic is a challenge in our oceans.”

An initiative of the Plastic Absolutely free Foundation, Plastic Free July performs toward a eyesight of a plastic-absolutely free environment, in accordance to its website.

Kate Hodgson selecting up plastic rope and trash at Spring Place in South Portland. Courtesy image Kate Hodgson

Hodgson mentioned she will be at Go Go Refill on July 10 to offer details from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. She also has an Instagram website page @drowning.in.plastic, that has received a around the globe adhering to.

“We are extremely, extremely fortunate in Maine that so substantially of the trash bypasses us due to the fact of the water existing,” she said. “But it does strike Ireland and Cornwall, the west coastline of Britain, France, as nicely, and so forth.”

Viewing the outcomes of plastic air pollution, which can eliminate sea mammals, is what keeps Hodgson invested, she said.

“I was born in 1959, and I have gone from what was considered the ‘plastic wonder,’ where by plastic was just this incredible merchandise,” she stated. “We’ve absent from this plastic wonder to a plastic pandemic, and it’s just getting even worse. To me, the most effective thing is the reduction of plastic in any way you can.”

Spreading consciousness is a single of the biggest steps in combatting the trouble, especially when it will come to micro-plastics, fragments of plastics, Hodgson reported.

“We eat or ingest a credit rating card’s worthy of of micro-plastics throughout the world on average,” she mentioned. “They’ve been identified in fetuses. It is just a huge difficulty and it’s acquiring even worse and even worse. The most effective thing people can do is cease utilizing plastic where ever they can, so no plastic bags. Quit employing straws, and refilling matters as an alternative of acquiring new plastic bottles, getting in bulk.”

Individuals who want to learn a lot more can take a look at Hodgson at Go Go Refill on July 10 or stick to her on Instagram, she mentioned. An additional former South Portland resident, Kathryn Nelson, runs the identical kind of account as Hodgson, @plasticfreemermaid on Instagram, with about 100,000 followers.

“Really, I have read it so numerous moments,” Hodgson claimed. “People say, ‘Well, I recycle,’ and recycling, as we’re all starting to grasp, is not the solution. There’s so substantially erroneous with the recycling system, and there’s so substantially that we simply cannot recycle. To some extent that is portion of the dilemma. when you break plastic down it can develop even extra micro-plastics, and it is the micro-plastics that we’re locating in our veggies, drinking water devices.”

Go Go Refill is a refilling station that is focused to chopping down on plastic, Hodgson stated. Customers take a look at with their possess refillable bottles, and the retail outlet is hoping to introduce plastic-cost-free products to consumers.

The style of rope Kate Hodgson collects to make ghost bowls. She said that fishermen will also donate leftover rope to her. Courtesy photograph Kate Hodgson

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