독자기고
2016 Clean UP the world Campaign
September is a month of Clean UP the World. 17th of September is the day where members and other communities gather together to clean the surroundings of Parramatta River.
On the day, John Jeong from Mickle Production and his production team have come down to shoot with several cameras and also with drone cameras to shoot from the sky. I have arrived at the Kissing Point Park Boat Ramp early to great the team but there were around 10 people already setting up the place and female members were busy preparing for the Lunch. I have noticed one man with a supervisor jacket and realized that the man was Hyun-Kyel Bahng, the Vice-captain of Korean Society of Sydney. He has been busy all morning bringing heavy stuff such as tables from Coordinator(Austin Kim) house. He also was helping the volunteers and was in front line of cleaning the River which to me can see the bright future of young Korean-Australian Association. During the preparation for the shooting, Federal MP from Bennelong John Alexander arrived and was in hurry due to the schedule. He need to leave early so was running around to clean up the area and he was too fast that I had trouble following him around. Someone like him, Federal MP, hands full of a tools to clean, in my mind, I was thinking if I were in his position, can I do the same thing? Is there a one person like him in Korean Government? While the production teams were busy taking the shots of communities cleaning up, I could hear one more shutter sound. Elder with white hair, with good camera gear, was very fluent in taking photographs of the events. She was the well-known photographer Rosie Nicolai who have retired from NSW State Government and is volunteering as a photographer.
The guests were; Chairman of Clean Up Australia Ian Kiernan/AO came with his wife and son, Terri-Ann Johnson/CEO came with her father, Scot Lloyd who were the former Parramatta council Mayor and is currently in charge of saving Parramatta River 2025 movement and Sarah Clift/Parramatta River Catchment Officer.
Communities & Groups are Muslim Community 10 people, Japanese Community 6 people, Chinese Community 5 people, Australian-Korean Welfare Assoc. 4 people, Sem-Teo church Pastor and 5 people, Buddhist 4 people, Dr. SamO Kim and Dr. Nam-Woong Lim and journalists from YTN and others came along to help. All together more than 120 were involved in Clean up the World 2016 weekend Campaign. They were wearing bright green jacket that’s made by FITA and was picking up the rubbishes around the river especially teenagers were actively involved in the event which proves that out future is bright and that’s why I wanted to record this event to show the world how they felt during the event and to spread this movement. Producer Samuel Nam and Sohyun Park from the Mickle Production have been working hard to interview and record volunteers and their thought about the event. Also wanted to thank Kenny Lee/MC who have been hosting the big events.
While picking up the rubbishes, I could see the plastic stuff buried inside the beach where we cannot physically go in to the deep water to pick them up and by watching the wave one thing came up on my mind. According to Koreans, ‘Ocean’ means that accepts everything and that’s what makes people from the olden days to throw rubbishes in to the sea and the whole world was doing the same thing while expecting that the oceans are always clean. However, with a development in our society and the rubbishes that were created by the factories and growth in human population, the environment in ocean came down as an emergency. How emergency can it be? In 1997, empty island was found in the ocean where the ice-land was made out in Rubbish’s from humans, factories, and other transportation rubbishes and its size are 16 times bigger than Korea and half the size of Australia. It is estimated that nowadays, the island would have been expended even more bigger. Plastic rubbishes from 192 countries that are thrown away each year is estimated as 1,270,000 tones but the researchers are looking higher numbers and all these enormous amount of plastic rubbishes are dumped into the ocean. 92% of plastic rubbishes are measured as 0.33~4.75mm micro-pieces which is too small and is widely spread throw-out the ocean that makes it hard to find and is slowly floats around the ocean with vortex. These micro-plastics in the oceans will be break time even more smaller, 0.5mm, which planktons in the oceans will slow them, small fish eats the planktons, bigger fish eats the small fish and finally humans eat the big fishes from the ocean. These life-web give the result that 1/3 fishes in the world are contaminated with plastic and also will make humans polluted and this is why the fishes from Parramatta River are not eatable. Also creating problems in the ocean environment. 50 years from now, only 5% from the dead bird’s organs contained plastic rubbishes but nowadays, 90% are plastic material. In other world, 9 out of 10 birds die due to the plastic rubbish. One big bird was found dead with lighter inside its organ. Ocean environment researchers say if this continues, in 2050 all the sea birds will be extinct.
Midway island in Hawaii used to have many different bird spices living but recently strange things were happening. Many birds were dying and was due to the plastic rubbishes that they have eaten. The stomach of the birds was full of plastics. Plastic rubbishes that humans have been throwing out have killed 100k sea birds every year. Also, the long living turtles die too and every year 10k turtles dies and many other species. When plastics break down, toxic formula pollutes the ocean and the sea animals that live by the water gets contaminated.
Around the world nowadays are working hard to reduce the number of plastics that we use and to find the alternative methods to create something to replace the plastic such as fibers from sugar cane, and corns to develop bio-plastic which it will be break down completely and will benefit the environment.
If you look closely into the Sydney Parramatta River, you can find a lot of plastic rubbishes that will surprise you. Volunteers were upset by looking at the rubbishes in the river. I wanted to film inside the River to show people out there to warn them about the situation. If we look around us, we are pretty much buried by the plastic materials and one day we need to really think about where all these plastics will go and need to think about whether we should just live with it. According to the founder of Clean UP Australia Ian Kiernan started the movement ‘pick up one plastic per day’ says that we need to recycle properly, use less plastic products and need to step up to ban the usage of Plastic. We need to seriously think about the fact that in 2050, all the sea birds will extinct and need to actively get involved in banning the use of plastic and warn our neighbors about this.
More you love, more you care. Getting actively involved in to the movement of banning the plastic will open our eyes and lead us to the ways that could save our lives and environments.
I was very thankful by looking at the bags full of rubbishes that we collected today and with the delicious lunch, we have taken the group photos and after that John Jeong from the Mickle Production have flied drone camera up in the sky to shoot along the river side and we have waved out hands. I’m sure that the footages will be amazing to use for the film. FITA makes videos that contains why we should be more actively involved in the Clean Up the World and give out to those who needs for free.
For more information please contact 0412909788(Austin Kim). www.fita.org.au
Written by: Bum-Suk Suh
Translator (English): Sohyun Park/DOP