We see it on our social media feeds, we hear about it in documentaries, we may have been taught about it in school: Plastic.
Just one single plastic foam cup takes 50 years to degrade. Plastic bottles, one of the most commonly used plastics, can take up to 450 years to degrade! Here at Life Solutions, we wanted to see how these kinds of numbers come to life in Shanghai and to make a positive difference to improve water quality and ecosystem health.
On August 8th 2018, Life Solutions partnered with Green Initiatives to learn more about our local environment and make a positive difference for marine life and ecosystems.
The team was briefed with facts and statistics before and during the rubbish clean up. The location Green Initiatives chose was Baoshan Wusong Pao Taiwan Wetland Forest National Park. This important National park is a “protected” area located on the last section of the Yangtze delta, facing the northeast shore of Chongming island.
“It is an ecosystem of special interest, adapted to changing conditions of a littoral marshland with fluvial and oceanic influences. Besides a rich variety of flora, supported by rich alluvial sediments and abundant humidity, the salty winds and flooded soils’ variable conditions affect the development of wetland communities. The shoreline is permanently exposed to the influence of tidal oscillation, water currents and the river flow, resulting in a high erosion of nutrients and soil particles that are dynamically balanced with the constant input of rich river sediments.”
Life Solutions and Green Initiatives staff worked all day picking up trash along the Yangtze River. Feeling this was an important educational and socially impactful experience, we felt proud to help protect the river water and the organisms living in the wetland.
