Two young British synchronised swimmers performed in a pool littered with plastic bags, bottles and other pieces of rubbish – all in a bid to raise awareness of pollution.
Duo 17-year-old Kate Shortman and 18-year-old Isabelle Thorpe, who have competed for Great Britain in the World and European Championships, said they struggled to perform their usually effortless championship routine, which includes twirls and kicks, in the swimming pool full of litter.
They performed the feat as part of a challenge from Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair in Birmingham – which encouraged young people to raise awareness of the impact of plastic pollution in the oceans.
Research from the Big Bang Fair has found more than a quarter of 11- to 16-year-olds want advances in science, technology, engineering and maths to tackle the threat of plastic in the oceans.
“Trying to do our routine in a pool full of plastic was really hard. We kept getting our legs stuck in the bags and bopping our heads on bottles,” Isabelle Thorpe, one of the swimmers, told BBC Newsround.
“It really hit home how awful it must be for the poor turtles and other sea life that go through that every day.”
It’s not the first awareness-raising stunt to have caught the public’s attention. In November, a fish and chip shop in Lancashire served up battered plastic to its customers to highlight the levels of plastic packaging littering our oceans.
From Fairy Liquid bottles to Thunderbird toys, pieces of plastic up to half a century old have been washing up on UK beaches. Meanwhile in Indonesia, a pair of flip flops and 115 plastic cups were found in a dead whale’s stomach.