KAT WOLFE'S GUIDE TO SAVING THE OCEAN
In my new book, Kat Wolfe Investigates, Kat Wolfe and Harper Lamb are lucky enough to live in an idyllic seaside town on the Jurassic Coast. Kat loves swimming in the waves or galloping chestnut racehorse, Charming Outlaw, along golden beaches, and Harper and her paleontologist father adore the nature and history of Bluebell Bay, Dorset.
If you’re as passionate as they are about saving our oceans and dolphins and other marine life, please think twice before you use plastic, eat tuna or visit a dolphinarium. Here are Kat’s top 10 tips for making a difference.
Say no to plastic straws before you order milkshakes or sodas at restaurant or cafés. In the US alone, 500 million plastic straws are used every day. Ask for paper straws or none at all.
Say no to plastic bottles. A single bottle can take 450 years to decompose. Take a flask or reusable water bottle everywhere you go and fill it with tap water
Say no to plastic bags. They take up to 1,000 years to decompose! During that millennium they’ll be choking whales and strangling turtles. A bull shark in India had 20 kgs of plastic removed from his stomach. Use tote bags or biodegradable bags
Say no to plastic ear buds that kill marine life. Use ear buds made with wood or other eco products.
Say no to glitter. It’s fun, pretty, sparkly and completely innocent, right? Wrong. Glitter is a microplastic and as harmful to oceans as any other plastic.
Say no to coffee cups. Think they’re easy to recycle? Think again. Carry a flask or reusable coffee cup if you’re commuting or travelling.
Say no to plastic forks, knives and spoons. Ask your school, café or bookshop to consider using biodegradable cutlery.
Say yes to picking up plastic litter on beaches or near rivers! If you’re fortunate enough to live near the water or go on holiday to the sea, consider taking time to organise a beach or river clean.
So yes to sustainable fish. Check that your fish and chips or smoked salmon comes from a renewable source. Avoid tuna. They are slow-maturing fish and 5 out of 8 tuna species are teetering on the brink of extinction.
Say yes to keeping dolphins and orcas free. Dolphins and orcas are highly intelligent creatures with rich, complex and loving families. They suffer horribly when they’re captured and condemned to a lifetime in a concrete pool, eating frozen fish while turning cartwheels for human entertainment. Show them you love them by helping keep them where they belong: in the wild.
Kat Wolfe Investigates is published by Macmillan Children's Books on 17 May 2018
