A man has found a crisp packet from 1989 and a retro beer can while out litter-picking in Portrush.
Gavin Wallace was cleaning up the coastal path beside the Whiterocks Beach on Sunday when he was shocked to find a packet of beef-flavoured Monster Munch from 1989 and an old-fashioned can of Bass beer.
For Gavin, who is often involved in environmental work in the area, the discovery shows the impact that littering can have on our environment, as materials such as plastic can survive for hundreds of years without decaying much.
However, they can break down into small pieces of plastic, known as microplastics, which pollute the environment.
After stumbling upon the old crisp packet and beer can, Gavin said he was excited as he had finally found something that was dated.
He said: “I've been waiting for a long time to find something with a date on it so I could actually push it in front of somebody's face and say: 'there you go, that's how long plastic lasts'.
“Most of the time, you find old items when out litter-picking, bags of crisps and whatever else. But most of the time the dates have been washed off them - that's the first thing to go. The plastic's the last thing to go. So, it was really good to find that as a way of showing how long plastic sticks about.”
Gavin is part of North Coast World Earth, an educational environmental awareness campaign and action group.
The group involves the local community in the North Coast, Causeway and Triangle areas, as well as 11 local primary schools.
Their focus is on raising awareness about pollution and the impact it is having on our environment.
On the impact littering can have on pollution, Gavin said: “People still think it isn’t that much of a problem, or that litter isn’t much of an issue.
“There are always going to be people who litter in our generation and to change their mindset, it’s going to be difficult.”
So, how do we reduce pollution and allow the environment to recover? For Gavin, the most important thing we can do is to instil an environmental mindset in our children.
He said: “Children are a really good and strong voice and messenger, I believe, and I think we can use that to our advantage by instilling strong educational messages. They are great because they have no filter - if they see somebody littering they’ll say something.
“I wanted our environmental group to not just be about picking up litter, but about instilling that educational message.”
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