#SaveOurOcean - Your Litter is Killing Marine Life

Do you know what litter does to marine life? Seventh graders from East Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York City made this short video to explain how our plastic street litter ends up in our rivers, bays and, oceans and eventually into the stomachs of fish, birds and other marine wildlife.

These students conducted a beach litter survey and clean-up ay Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, NY. They surveyed to find out exactly what types and how much litter was on this urban National Park beach.

Ranger Dan Meharg explains how so much litter ends up on the Jamaica Bay beaches. Street litter travels through sewer pipes and ends on the beach and in the ocean. Even if you are miles away, in some other part of New York City, and you drop your litter onto the street, it may likely end up coming out of an outfall pipe somewhere into a river or the bay.

"If we are going to have a nicer place for people, birds, animals, and fish, we all need to work together to drop less things on our streets," says Ranger Dan.

Among the litter items that students from MS 246 Walt Whitman collected and surveyed on the beach were plastic bottles, plastic food wrapping and plastic carryout bags. After sorting all the litter, one can easily get a visual idea of just how much of this plastic litter is leaking into our waters on a regular basis. Beach clean-ups help, but they are not the solution to stop the leakage of plastics into our oceans.

We all need to reduce the amounts of single-use plastics that we use, from plastic carryout bags, straws, cups, lids, styrofoam food containers, and plastic forks and spoons, and more. Start by refusing to take a plastic straw and bringing your bag!

#BYObag #skipthestraw

"#SaveOurOcean - Your Litter is Killing Marine Life" was edited by 7th grade student, Shakim Carr, with camera work from class 702 at MS246 Walt Whitman Middle School in Brooklyn, NYC.

#AAOplasticfree

Take action to protect our precious marine wildlife, our fish and other seafood that are being poisoned by the estimated trillions of tiny bits of plastic litter in oceans across the globe.

Good data informs policy and that is exactly what students in Cafeteria Culture's environmental STEaM programs are learning with first-hand experience!

Thank you US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2, New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC), Fund for the City of New York, Jack Johnson's Charity, and individual donors for supporting Cafeteria Culture's Community Arts+Media for Trash Free Waters Program.

Thank you to the students, teachers and staff of MS246 Walt Whitman Middle School, NYC Department of Education and to our friends at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Gateway National Recreation Area.