EPISODE 24: SOS! SAVE OUR SEAS FROM PLASTIC POLLUTION!

In today’s show we speak once again with Flossie Donnelly an incredible 14year old who set up an environmental charity to fight against plastic in our seas called ‘Flossie and the Beach Cleaners.’

As the name suggests, she organises beach cleans where plastic and other polluting rubbish is collected so it doesn’t end up in the sea where it damages the marine environment and hurts or kills the marine animals that live there when they eat it or get trapped in it.

Today she talks to us about how during the Covid crisis they moved their educational workshops for school kids onto the beaches. She talks about why it’s so important to make working to protect our environment fun for kids and to make sure they know that it isn’t all doom and gloom, that the positive message is that if we work together we can really can solve many of our environmental problems.

She tells Buster and Buddy why she trains secondary school teens to do some of these workshops as she is passionate that “Little kids learn best from big kids!”

We chat about the 3 R’s – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle – and she gives us some brilliant ideas about ways to reuse waste plastic – including how she recently built a paddleboard out of plastic bottles, some bamboo and rope! Now that is an ingenious use of waste plastic bottles Flossie!

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Michelle and her team have a collective 50years experience working with kids as teachers, entertainers and parents!

Thanks to Zapsplat, Audio Jungle and Alexander Korotkoff for the sound effects and music.

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GUEST OF THE DAY

Flossie Donnelly

Flossie Donnelly is a secondary school student and an enthusiastic and engaged climate activist. Her passion is the sea and protecting the marine environment works to reduce the plastic pollution in our seas.

She has been dubbed ‘Ireland’s Greta Thunberg.’

Her activism first began on a family trip to Thailand when she was eight years old. Whilst on holidays she was taken aback by the amount of plastic pollution she observed on the beaches she visited and when swimming in the sea. She spent a considerable amount of time on that trip collecting rubbish from the sea and bringing it back to the hotel where her family were staying. On her return to Ireland, she noticed more and more rubbish being washed up on local beaches and knew she had to share her passion around protecting marine life and to educate others about plastic pollution.

She set up her environmental charity ‘Flossie and the Beach Cleaners’ when she was 11years old, organising beach clean-ups in Dunlaoire and Sandycove near her home. However, recently she has expanded the charity and now has over 7 Flossie and the Beach Cleaner groups dotted around Ireland!

Flossie regularly engages in climate strikes either outside her school or the Dáil.

She is the first person to have brought seabins into Ireland after raising €4,000 for the two binns herself. These devices can remove up to 83,000 plastic bags or 20,000 plastic bottles from the sea in one year!

Her work also expands internationally, having connected with villages and plastic charities in Indonesia to help them fight against their plastic pollution problem which is so bad, they suffer with plastic rivers.

She remains positive that if we work together we can alleviate many of our environmental challenges and problems.

MINI MINDFULNESS MOMENT

Louise Shanagher

Louise Shanagher is a children’s therapist, mindfulness teacher and trainer.

Louise has a BA and MSc in Psychology and further qualifications in Play Therapy and Mindfulness.

She is the creator of the “Creative Mindfulness Kids” method and has trained hundreds of people to be children’s mindfulness teachers.

She is the author of six books: The "Mindfully Me" series, Ireland’s first series of mindfulness books for children and the “Kindfully Me” series and the co-author of Ireland's first mindfulness curriculum the "Mindful Heart" curriculum.

Louise is passionate about promoting positive mental health for children and young people. She believes that all children should get the opportunity to learn how to practice mindfulness and self-compassion and believes that these practices will help children lead happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives.

Website: https://www.louiseshanagher.com/