Source to Sea Project – Micro Plastics Research

Adventure Activism: Using adventure activism to highlight the issue of micro plastics and to ascertain the levels present by swimming every National Park (980km) and sampling 220 litres of water to test for micro plastic particles in the labs at Bangor University. This will highlight the issue to the general public. Having already had significant coverage of the Snowdonia National Park swims through the BBC, Sky News and ITV after we found micro plastics in the source.

Community Engagement:- Rolling out the Source to Sea education programme in schools across each National Park using Art and citizen science. Pupils will collaborate on a Source to Sea Schools report encompassing all U.K National parks which will form an ongoing partnership whereby schools will monitor the health of the waters in their National Park and send samples to be analysed in the labs at Bangor university annually.

We Swim Wild Rep program:- Phase one of the National rep program will be asking volunteers to protect a stretch of their local water way. At two key dates in a year reps will send us a water sample and to carry out an audit of the plastic pollution and biodiversity. This will inform the  ‘Health of our waterways – Annual Micro Plastic report’ to track and monitor the issue as well as trial ways to reduce micro plastics using citizen science.