Anastasia Castro and Charlotte Brady have found deep purpose in fighting to save the ocean.
The Grade 11 students at Glenlyon Norfolk School in Victoria, both 16, spent Saturday at Second Beach in Vancouver, using tongs and trash pickers to help with a shoreline cleanup, one of many such events being held across Canada on World Oceans Day.
The girls, along with friend Grace Poole, have led work to ban single-use plastic bags in the Greater Victoria area, and spoken about their efforts with Vancouver city council. They’re currently working with MLAs and MPs to push for a provincial ban on all single-use plastics.
“Single-use plastics are so important to us, we wanted to get out in the community and show we are dedicated to Vancouver and Victoria, because we all need to work on this together,” Brady said.
The teenagers say their fight for legislation is important, given the threat of the climate crisis, but so is spending time on the ground to keep their local beaches clean.
“The ocean is just such an alien and beautiful place,” Castro said.
“I’ve been diving before and you always see these images of it but never realize how crazy it is. It’s like going to another planet. Everyone talks about going to Mars, but if you want to go to another planet, the only place you have to go is to stick your head in the ocean.”
“It’s so integral to the rest of the ecosystem, how we all survive,” added Brady. “If the ocean even warms by a few degrees, we will lose so much of nature, we will lose so much of our ability to produce the right amount of oxygen for the Earth.”