Earth Day EXTRA: Microplastics & Special Guest Callie Broaddus ♻️
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Description
🌍 As Earth week winds down, we recognize there’s always more we can do to help out our planet, which is why we're brining you even more Earth Day coverage! ♻️ We hear from our favorite Nature Nerd Laine Farber, as she explains the big impact of tiny microplastics on the environment. 🧒 Then, we're featuring even more from our interview with Callie Broaddus, the founder of Reserva, The Youth Land Trust, whose mission is to empower young people to protect threatened species and habitats through conservation, education, and storytelling🦎 Plus! The Trivia Question of the Day!
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Transcript
Sources for this episode
https://www.earthday.org/toolkit-earth-day-2021-restore-our-earth/
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/plastics-remote-places-microplastics-earth-mount-everest
https://www.treehugger.com/things-hidden-plastic-them-4867828
TRANSCRIPT:
Various Voices 0:00
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Bethany Van Delft 0:07 I'm Bethany Van Delft, and this is no ordinary episode of The Ten News. This is The Ten News gets extra featuring extra content from our Earth Day coverage.
Even though the celebration of Earth week is coming to an end, there's always more we can do to help our planet. Let's dive in. Have you heard about microplastics our favorite nature nerd Laine Farber explains the big impact of these tiny troublemakers.
Laine Farber 0:48 Plastic, plastic everywhere. From the deepest depths of the ocean to the peak of Mount Everest. There's no doubt about it, microplastics are littering our landscape. Plastic is part of most people's daily lives. It's in so many things in grocery bags, straws, coffee cups, water bottles, glitter, and even clothes. Plastic is so common that little pieces of it are showing up in the most remote places on earth. A recent study conducted on Mount Everest found that the snow samples contained microplastics. A micro plastic is any tiny plastic particle five millimeters or smaller. That's about the size of an eraser on the end of a pencil. Most microplastics are formed when larger plastic products begin to break down. Due to things like the sun's UV rays, or friction from rubbing against different surfaces, some plastics start out their journey tiny, they don't need to break down into microplastics because they're manufactured that way. Like the different types of microbeads used in cosmetics to exfoliate skin. No matter how they form, microplastics are a big problem. Micro plastics can get stuck in the gills of marine animals. For our fish friends who survived the gill clogging, the danger doesn't stop there.
Laine Farber 2:12 Marine animals also consume large quantities of plastic each year, which can make them sick and even kill them. Plastics have a nasty habit of absorbing toxins and chemicals. So if a fish eats a piece of plastic filled with harmful chemicals, things might not go swimmingly. And humans are also at risk. Yep. Even humans eat micro plastics grows. As a matter of fact, according to one study, humans eat roughly a credit cards worth of plastic each year. Think about that next time mom uses her credit card to buy groceries. So why are we eating plastic? Well, humans consume plastic because it's in the things we eat. Studies have found plastic in drinking water, seafood, salt, sugar, honey and a few other foods. The jury is still out on just how much harm can be done by eating plastic. But if the effects it has on animals is any sign, it's probably not great that we ingest so much of these microplastics each year. So plastics in our ocean, littering our environment and filling up our bellies is obviously not great. But what can we do to help fight the problem? Good news is there are lots of things that we can do to help. Just remember reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order. The best thing you can do is reduce your use of plastic. Especially single use plastics, such as plastic silverware, straws, bags, bottles, and most food packaging. Start small by replacing one everyday plastic item with something reusable, like using straws. Ditch the plastic and try a reusable steel straw. going grocery shopping create less waste by bringing your own cloth bag to bring your goodies home. The possibilities are endless. Once you've reduced your plastic waste, you should reuse what you do have turned plastic packaging materials into arts and crafts supplies. Use that bag of plastic bags you have under your kitchen sink as little trash bags and go pick up litter in your neighborhood. And last but not least, recycle. Check in your community to see what items are recyclable. And then be the recycling captain of your household. Hold a seminar with your family on what can and cannot be recycled. Make a poster. Don't forget to add lots of awesome pictures and glitter, the biodegradable kind, no plastic here. And remember, don't be sad about plastic pollution. Be inspired that you can take action and help make a difference.
Bethany Van Delft 5:00 On Earth Day, we talked with Callie Broaddus, the founder of Reserva at the Youth Land Trust. Let's listen to Callie tell us more about the organization. Can you tell us a little bit about the youth council of Reserva and how the leadership of Reserva works with the Youth Council?
Callie Broaddus 5:22 Absolutely. So Reserva is the Youth Council, essentially, it's me, plus the Youth Council. So we are very new, we just launched a year and a half ago. So as it, as a nonprofit organization, we're legally required to have a board of directors. And that is actually half youth. So we pull the really committed, and the young people from the youth council who have demonstrated that they're very invested in this organization, we give them the opportunity to serve on the board of directors and get experience actually governing a nonprofit organization. So we have, we have that body. And then we have the Youth Council, which is 60 people from around the world who are all 26 and younger. We actually have a junior committee of much younger kids, as young as seven, and they're from around the world as well. Our mission is to empower young people to protect threatened species and habitats through conservation, education and storytelling.
Bethany Van Delft 6:25 Again, that's just phenomenal. You're, you're not only saving the planet, but you're providing this incredible work experience, this nonprofit experience, the experience of working together planning, it's really incredible.
Callie Broaddus 6:44 I think that working with young people is so fun, because it's it's really different from working within the established modes of how you do things, how you run an organization, how you can serve land, when you're working with young people, they, one of the one of the downsides is they don't have the experience, right? They don't have the experience of people who have been there and done that, and worked in these big organizations. The upside is they don't have the experience. And so they're more creative. They are they're reinventing things constantly. And so that ultimately has been, you know, whereas I think other organizations might consider that a barrier. We've turned that into kind of our creative energy.
Bethany Van Delft 7:29 What would you say to a kid who wants to do something?
Callie Broaddus 7:33 So for me, I think with with Reserva, I think of it as kind of like, like a gear, you've got these big, big gears that you want to move, that's the global systems, these, these gears that are so big that no one person except for maybe Greta thunberg, could could really move them by themselves. But those gears are attached to smaller gears which spend a little faster. And those are the, you know, the world governments, the the US government, and smaller gears, move those that's a local governments, corporations, state governments, smaller, dears move those and that's your community governments, your community organizations, your schools, and within that, it's your family, it's your clubs. And ultimately, it comes down to you. And as long as you are spinning as hard as you can, those gears will move. You might not see the impact on a big scale right away. But if you trust that other people are also moving and you encourage other people, especially within your community, within your school, within your family to move at the same speed, then it will ultimately have that that impact on the on those larger gears.
Sound Bit 8:53 What, what, what's the big idea?
Bethany Van Delft 8:57 Trivia on The Ten. Our planet has so many amazing little creatures, and one salamander from South America has a very cool ability. Is it A) the ability to fly, B) the ability to change in size when threatened, C) the ability to camouflage like a chameleon, or D) the ability to breathe through the skin? Did you guess it? The answer is D. It can breathe through its skin. Let's see what Callie brought us has to say about this cool lizard.
Callie Broaddus 9:42 There's a creature that lives on this reserve in Ecuador. And it lives throughout South America and I'm not sure if it was other places maybe Central America as well. But it is a lungless arboreal salamander, it's called the it's in the the genus is bolita-glossa. And the fun fact is that this little salamander, which has no lungs, it breathes through its skin also happens to have the fastest tongue in the animal kingdom. It is faster than the chameleon. And it is this, if you've ever seen the word long boy, that is what this guy is. It is a long creature with stubby little legs, and little padded feet. They're so cute. The males have little mustaches on their on their lips. And, and they've got these kind of bug guys, these long tails and they live in the trees. I can't even explain it. You have to go Google it. It's bolito glossa b o l.... i.... Gosh. I guess I can't spell it. BOLITTOGLOSSA. Maybe bolittoglossa. Yep.
Bethany Van Delft 10:56 Ten'ners, Can you spell it? B-O-L-I-T-O-G-L-O-S-S-A. Bolitoglossa! How did she say? Oh my gosh, that's such a big name for a little salamander. Time is up. But before we go, here's a quick note for the grownups want even more great content from The Ten News. Sign up for The Ten News newsletter, aka The Ten News letter. It's a free bi-weekly email with even more stories to enjoy together, and we made it easy for you. The link to join is in the show notes. And on our website, thetennews.com. Thanks for listening to The Ten News. Look out for our new episodes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and extras on Saturdays. The Ten News is a co production of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts and is distributed by iHeartRadio. The production and editorial team isn't adventurous bunch and it includes Tracey Crooks, Andrew Hall, Pete Musto, Ben-Austin DoCampo, Jenner Pascua, Stephen Tompkins, and Sarah Olender, Laine Farber contributed to this episode. Our production directors Jeremiah Tittle, and The Ten News is executive produced by Donald Albright and show creator, Tracy Leeds Kaplan. Would you like to be part of the show? We would love that! Have a grown up help you record a question, a joke, or fun fact you want to share, and email it to us at hello@thetennews.com. And show your love for The Ten News by going to your favorite podcast app and submitting a rating and review. It really helps others find the show so they can join us for the fun. I'm Bethany Van Delft, and thanks for listening to The Ten News. Bolittoglossa to you, bolittoglossa to you. Go find a little bolittoglossa. I still don't know if that's how you say it. I know Callie said it. I have to go back and listen to the episode. In the meantime, see you next time. Bye.
