I THINK THAT IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A CHANGE OR MAKE A STAND, YOU CAN, EVEN IF YOU ARE STANDING ALONE
Swimmer and environmental campaigner Laura Sanderson is planning to swim all of the UK National Parks this year to test for micro plastic pollution. The venture will cover 980 kilometres of swimming, 15 National Parks and include sampling 220 litres of water. The results will become part of an academic PhD study on ways to reduce microplastics in inland waterways from source to the sea.
The four-year project began last year with a similar quest from the top of Mount Snowdon to the sea in Wales. This initial challenge, to establish levels of plastics in remote environments, was the catalyst for the Source to Sea National Park project. “I wanted to see if there were microplastics present in what appeared to be clear water from the source of a river in a remote environment and how this changed as we swam through urban areas and larger rivers,” says Laura. “I chose one of the cleanest rivers in Snowdonia and I expected to find no microplastics at the source. Unfortunately, a month later, scientists found micro plastic in the air in the Alps so by the time the results came out I was under no illusion. Bangor University tested the samples and found micro plastics all the way through the water system quadrupling in numbers by the time we reached the sea.”