Plastics – Source to Sea

1st Sep 2021

We recently uploaded a new FREE Education Resource Pack entitled Source to Sea, looking at the issue of Plastics and how they might enter our Rivers and Seas. This SOURCE TO SEA free educational resource provides a topic plan and learning materials in three modules, starting with Our Amazing Oceans along with The River Wear, and Plastics in the Environment.

The education materials were always planned as part of a larger look at plastics in the River Wear. This wider project was unavoidably delayed by Covid restrictions preventing researchers getting out and about and sampling water along the River Wear, source to sea.

Teesside University is partnering with Living Uplands and Durham Wildlife Trust on this project. With restrictions on getting out and about lifted, a trial sampling field trip took place in August at Wearhead and Frosterly.

Further sampling is due to take place in September, followed by laboratory testing at the University.

The project will also engage with local schools with the Durham Wildlife team encouraging pupils to think more about how plastics might enter the water system, and what each of us can do to use plastics responsibly.

Image credit: Phil Harris, Daily Mirror