Editorial: Ignorant adults need to react

Jasmine Nossiter.

Kids are great at pointing out the obvious.

Jasmine Nossiter, 9, has done just that with her study into litter on Whangarei beaches.

Her school project makes it clear we are not treating Whangarei Harbour with the respect it deserves. Jasmine lives out at Whangarei Heads, and goes to Parua Bay School.

She made Urquharts Bay and other beaches at the heads the focus of a project which challenged her to predict what litter she would find on a beach, then visit the beach, collect litter and analyse her findings. Take a look on page 2 of today's paper at the rubbish she found.

Plastic. And more plastic.

Fishers should ashamed, look at the plastic bait bags and onion sacks (fishers fill these with berley and dangle them in the water).

Fishers are the first to rant and rave if they sense someone is taking advantage of the ocean's bounty. Yet Jasmine's findings suggest that fishers aren't treating the ocean very well at all.

Over at Ocean Beach, there's nowhere near as much rubbish. It's a beach next to the ocean.

Urquharts Bay is a catchment on the inner harbour where there are a lot more boats.

The rubbish Jasmine found is only a snapshot of summer, there is more out there.

If you are so lazy that you toss a used bait bag overboard, you don't deserve the privilege of being out on the water. Bait companies also need to consider alternatives to plastic packaging. There are a few challenges around this one - bait is bloody and smelly, and not something most people want leaking in their fridge or freezer. Plastic is efficient at containing liquid and odour. But here's the thing. If we keep dumping plastic in our ocean, there won't be any fish to catch.

A child has highlighted this point - what are we ignorant adults going to do about it?

It's not just bait bags littering our coast. Jasmine found a heap of other rubbish too.

Which means there is something that everyone can change now, so we have less litter - our attitudes.