THE OCEAN AWARDS 2018
SARAH BAULCH
Microbeads campaigner helps
UK outlaw productionAnyone washing once a day can put
between 80,000 and 100,000 microbeads
down the drain every day, and they end
up in the food chain. One in three fish
caughtintheUKwillhaveingestedplastic.
On1January,theUKoutlawedthe
manufacture of products with plastic
beads smaller than 5mm – cosmetics,
personal-care products and some
detergents–andon30Junetheirsalewill
be banned too. The US and Canada have
already banned their use, as has France,
with Belgium, New Zealand and Sweden
settofollow.Thisisthanksinpartto
Sarah Baulch, senior oceans campaigner
at the Environmental Investigation Agency,
and her part in the Microbeads Coalition,
comprising Fauna & Flora International,
Greenpeace UK and the Marine
Conservation Society. “Microbeads
are a totally unnecessary source of
microplastic pollution,” she says, “that
result in up to 80 tonnes of microplastic
wasteenteringtheseaeveryyearfrom
theUKalone,justfromfacialexfoliants.”WinnerThe Microbeads Coalition
has helped bring about a UK
ban on the manufacture of
products containing plastic
microbeads from 1 January
and a ban on their sale, which
comes into efect in June 2018
JO RUXTON
Filmmaker behind
prize-winning documentaryJo Ruxton spent four years making the
documentaryAPlasticOcean(available on
Netflix), about discarded plastic that ends
up in the oceans and the catastrophe the
world faces as a result. The project, she
says, pushed her to her limits, “personally
and financially”. They filmed in 20
locations, including the Polynesian state of
Tuvalu,“whichwasthisbeautifulpristine
tropical island until 1978”, says Ruxton,
“when it became an independent nation
and began to import goods, and
everything came wrapped in plastic.
There’s nowhere to bury it so they burn it.
We filmed a family group, five of whom
hadcancerandtwoofwhomhaddiedin
the previous 18 months. As filmmakers we
can’tsaythetwoareconnected,butIsaw
itasavisionofourfuture.”Tofundthe
documentary Ruxton and Sonija Norman,
a lawyer and the film’s executive producer,
setupthePlasticOceansFoundation,
through which the film is available for
screenings.“We’vemadethefilm,”she
says. “Now the real work begins.”Sixteen years after the originalBlue Planetseries, the BBC’s
Natural History Unit, in partnership with the Open University,
produced a follow-up, a seven-episode series presented by Sir
David Attenborough and broadcast at prime-time on Sunday
evenings. Towards the end of theBlue Planet IIseries last year, it
was attracting audiences of 17 million; when Theresa May visited
China in January, she took Xi Jinping a copy of the box set.
This was serious television setting the agenda in a way anyone
concerned with the plight of the world’s oceans could only find
cheering. The series was filmed over four years, involving 125
shoots in 39 countries and 6,000 hours of underwater filming.
The final episode, Our Blue Planet, examined the toll taken
on the oceans by humanity through over-fishing (and discardedfishing gear), the careless trashing of plastics, especially those
used just once, noise and light pollution. If we do not act, was its
message, then the marine life you have marvelled at will be gone.
The BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, expects to sell
Blue Planet IIin 200 territories. As the series’ executive producer
James Honeyborne puts it: “Ocean-related problems tend to be
global issues. If you drop a bit of plastic in one ocean, it can end
up in another, even several oceans away. So it’s great for this
series to get into every country it can.”
The series continues to be cited as an inspiration, not least
by Buckingham Palace. In February a palace spokesperson
announced that single-use plastic bottles and drinking straws
would no longer be used on royal estates.The Public Awareness Award
FinalistsM A R K BROW NLOW
Executive producer, series producer and team whose breathtaking series captures oceans’ plight
AND TEAMJAMES HONEYBORNE
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