Support ‘Cash for Containers’ and help stop plastic pollution in our oceans
Recently, a group of high school students from Canterbury Girls High School managed to get all Coca-Cola products banned from their school. They did this in support for the Cash for Containers scheme – a scheme that the Coca-Cola company are doing their best to block from being rolled out across Australia. You can read more on their story and the video from ABC News here.
The need for plastic recycling
Plastic pollution is a major issue across our country today. Australians use between 13 – 14 billion drinks containers each year, and only South Australia has a scheme in place for container collection. The rest ends up filling space in landfills, littering the streets, parks, and oceans. These plastic containers become hazardous to many marine animals and birds. Not just in Australia, but all the world has been affected by marine plastic pollution. Up to a third of the plastic comes from the beverage industry. For the birds and animals, the plastic is known to be the cause of their injuries and deaths when they mistake it for prey and eat it. This includes whales, dolphin, turtles, seals, and many others.
Cash for Containers
The Container Deposit Scheme (CDS), also known as Cash for Containers, is a simple solution that would drastically cut down the plastic pollution we see in our oceans and on our land.
“Beverage container recycling rates are appallingly low in most states. 40% of the rubbish we collect on Clean Up Australia Day is bottles and cans, but in South Australia, where they have container deposits they are just 8.4% of the rubbish we collect.”
– Ian Kiernan AO, Founder of Clean Up Australia and past Australian of the year.
With a container deposit scheme in action, there is an incentive for returning those containers for recycling. It’s just as easy as purchasing the drink, you pay a 10 cent deposit which is included in your purchase price, and then you return your container to a designated recycling agent to receive your cash back.
Greenpeace is heading a call for action on the Cash for Containers scheme.
“Environment Ministers around Australia received a report last week about ‘cash for containers’. We already know a scheme could slash plastic pollution. But they’re yet to make a final decision, and beverage corporations like Coca-Cola are still standing in the way.”
Supporting Greenpeace
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families.
The Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support such organisations as Greenpeace, as they encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Please see our website for more information:
How you can help
Add your support for the Cash for Containers scheme by signing the petition to be sent to NSW Premier Mike Baird:
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/action/?cid=69&src=gp5
Demand protection for India’s women and girls!
The story so far
28 May, in a village called Badaun in the northeastern state of Uttar Pradesh in India, two teenage girls, cousins, were gang-raped and hanged from a tree. Five men, including two police officers, have been arrested. Two others are absconding.
A minister from the ruling party responded to the crime by saying that rape “is a social crime … sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong.” Babulal Gaur, of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also said that the crime of rape can only be considered to have been committed if it is reported to police.
When the 14 and 15 year old girls went missing, one girl’s dad went to the police and fell in front of them on his hands and knees pleading for them to do something. They laughed at him and told him to go home. The officer refused to register the complaint until angry protesters forced them to do so the next morning, May 29, when the bodies were discovered.
Unfortunately, in India, this is not an isolated incident. A rape is reported in India almost once every 20 minutes, and in a population of well over 1 billion people, there are likely to be a high number of attacks that are going unreported.
The Avaaz ad campaign
Avaaz is putting together an ad campaign to highlight the issues and call for action and support for India’s women and girls.
“My country’s new leader ran on the promise of rebuilding the holy city, Varanasi, where he was elected, as a major tourist hub. If we build a millions-strong global call for the protection of women and plaster it all over Prime Minister Modi’s city, he’ll be forced to act to save his tourism plan.”
– Alaphia Zoyab, Avaaz campaigner
Supporting Avaaz
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families.
The Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support such organisations as Avaaz, as they encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Please see our website for more information:
How you can help
Alaphia Zoyab and the Avaaz team are compiling a petition to send to India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.
“Before the elections, a massive movement was building to get urgent action to stop violence against women. Experts drafted a Womanifesto – a common sense plan for urgently needed reforms to stop the rape epidemic. It covers law, policing, medical and psychological support, and crucially – public education. Other major parties signed up to it, but Modi ignored it.
Even Modi’s staff agree with most of the plan. Now we just need him to put it into action.
India’s President, Pranab Mukherjee, has claimed this new government ‘will have a policy of zero tolerance for violence against women.’ Let’s build a massive petition and boldly plaster Varanasi with billboards calling for this promise to urgently become an action plan.” – Avaaz
Sign now: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/womanifesto_modi_aus_ir/
You can help save 1 million marine animals by 2018
World Oceans Day
World Oceans Day was on the 8th of June. It marks “a day to celebrate life beneath the waves and also to highlight the threat that abandoned fishing gear poses to sea life.” The ocean covers two-thirds of the planet and is home to an incredible number of animals. Unfortunately, more and more marine animals are suffering as the oceans continue to be exploited.
“Ghost fishing gear – nets, lines and traps that are abandoned, lost or discarded in our oceans – represents one of the biggest threats to sea life. Millions of animals including whales, seals, turtles and birds become entangled and suffer from debilitating wounds, infections and starvation. These animals can suffer for months, or even years, before they die.”
– World Animal Protection – World Oceans Day
Sea Change campaign
World Animal Protection Limited (previously World Society for the Protection of Animals) is leading a campaign to save 1 million marine animals by 2018. They will be working in three ways to protect animals from ghost fishing gear. They will:
- Bring together partners to stop gear being abandoned
- Support new ways to remove ghost gear from the seas
- Help to replicate successful local sea animal rescue efforts on a global scale.
“Abandoned, lost and discarded nets, lines and traps are one of the biggest threats to our sea life. A staggering 640,000 tonnes of gear is left in our oceans each year. That gear traps, injures, mutilates and kills hundreds of thousands of whales, seals, turtles and birds annually.”
– World Animal Protection – World Oceans Day
Supporting World Animal Protection
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families.
The Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support such organisations as World Animal Protection, as they encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Please see our website for more information:
How you can help
You can help save 1 million marine animals by 2018 by sharing World Animal Protection’s Sea Change campaign with your family and friends.
Download their ‘Sea Change executive summary’ to learn how ghost gear is endangering our sea life.
Save Leard Forest from the bulldozers!
The story so far
Leard State Forest in north-west New South Wales near the mining town of Boggabri. The coal mine at Maules Creek – the largest coal mine currently under construction in Australia – has been given permission to break the most basic of mining rules; to stop clearing during the winter months, when many threatened species are hibernating. Other mines in the area have not been given this special treatment.
The threat of coal mining
Coal mining planned for this area of New South Wales by Whitehaven Coal is expected to destroy approximately 5000 hectares – that’s more than half – of Leard State Forest, and produce 30 million tonnes of carbon pollution per year.
“This mine is being built on a tract of woodland so important it’s been classified as ‘tier 1 biodiversity’. It’s so rare that only 0.1% of its original extent remains in the world in an undisturbed state. It is home to over 396 native species, 26 of which are threatened. That includes the koala, squirrel glider, corben’s longeared bat, pale headed snake and barking owl.” – Greenpeace
Greenpeace campaign to save Leard Forest
Greenpeace activists have been working to stop Whitehaven Coal from razing the ancient Leard State Forest in order to build a coal mine. Greenpeace reports on the current situation with the coal company:
“Whitehaven’s original Biodiversity Management Plan stated that “clearing of areas for mining will be undertaken predominantly late summer and early autumn periods in order to avoid key breeding/hibernation seasons for threatened bat and bird species known to reside in the Leard State Forest.
But this is now defunct, because Whitehaven has decided to flatten the forest anyway, hibernation or not. The result? Animals are being killed in their sleep. After Labor and the Greens called for Whitehaven to stop, even state Environment Minister Rob Stokes has been prompted to express his ‘frustration’ at Whitehaven.
Pressure is building, but the activists in the forests are a thin line of defence. It’s down to the NSW Government to call on Whitehaven to stop.” Greenpeace
Supporting Greenpeace
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families.
The Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support such organisations as Greenpeace, as they encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Please see our website for more information:
How you can help
Take action now by signing the urgent petition to the Government, led by Greenpeace:
wishingwellorg.wordpress.com 