President Marcus’s Opening Remarks

• Thanks to PP PHF John Shaw for his ITC expertise enabling visual presentations and Zoom. Welcome to Borgy (Don Borg) on Zoom.
• Last week was a great meeting and Marcus was proud to receive a letter from the RIPPR Leanne Jaggs.

• He also received a beautiful email from Bob a Monbulk Rotary Club member.
• There were three inductees last week: Tarja Tuomisto, Linda Cullel and Rowan French.
• Tonight is Sid Umesh’s third time in the house.
• Kerrie and Steve Graham and Cara Norton are guests invited by Tina.
• Another guest is Mal Ferguson from the Western Creek Club in Canberra.

• Last meeting, Marcus’s father’s legacy of money for lung transplant research was put in place and Gayle Barrot, Community Service Chair, received a thank you letter from the Alfred Foundation for the donation.
• Chris McLeod has been a member for 12 months. Chris “hates being the centre of attention as she is a shy little flower”. When asked to comment on her year, Chris said the people here are absolutely amazing, everybody helps and looks after one another.
• Welcome to Chairperson Ian Wakefield.

• The meeting last week was out of this world
• 80 people attended
• There were a lot of laughs
• The Spangles provided entertainment.
• Guest speaker Professor Snell was outstanding and was invited after we lost Marcus’s father and our friend PP PHF Chris Adams to lung disease.
• We received a letter from Chris’s wife Jeanette Adams thanking us for the cheque in the name of her husband that was given to Professor Snell, an inspiring Melbourne surgeon.
• Louise Borg also succumbed to lung disease.
• The guest speaker Dr Bruce Richardson was introduced to talk about Plastic Pollution. Dr Bruce is very well-credentialled to talk on the subject.

Dr. Bruce Richardson

• Is a retired university academic specialising in marine pollution and he lived in Hong Kong for a number of years.
• Presented a number of plastic horror stories, the first of which, put out by the World Wildlife Fund, was a fake.
• The second story was filmed in Manila two years ago and showed the incredible amount of litter along the beach adjoining the nearby seafood restaurant areas that you can walk along.
• The third story was that we ingest a credit card‘s worth of plastic a week without knowing it.
• Plastics are polymers which are long-chain molecules and the key property of plastics is that they are durable and degrade very slowly. E.g. it takes 450 years for disposable nappies to disappear.
• Stabilisers help to stop the degradation of plastic by UV light.
• Fillers can be added as they are flame retardants
• Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical produced for use primarily in the production of plastics
• BPA can leach into food or water
• The new car smell is related to BPA.
• BPA is the classic example of a toxic chemical.
• 4% of the world’s petroleum is used to produce plastic
• Very little plastic is recycled
• Over 50 % of plastics are discarded
• Only 20% are recycled more than once.
• China mismanaged the disposal of plastics.
• 80% of plastic waste in our oceans enters from Asia.
• Single-use plastics are to blame.
• The Garbage Gyres are giant garbage patches of floating plastic waste.
• The 6 gyres are found in the East, West and South Pacific, Indian and North and South Atlantic Oceans
• The gyres remain for years on end
• Can’t we just haul in the plastic? - this is just fiddling at the edges.
• The pathway by which plastic enters the world’s oceans is rivers.

• Sunlight and seawater embrittle plastics
• Microbeads are found in exfoliators and toothpaste etc.
• Nano plastics are .001 to .1 of a micro metre.
• They account for the bulk of plastics
• The bulk of the plastics are on the shoreline - they go out and come back in again.

• We have to tackle the plastics before they get into the oceans.
• There is the 1000 Rivers Project
• Of the top 10 most polluted rivers, 7 are in the Philippines
• 2 rivers are in India
• 1 is in Asia
• Do microplastics affect living organisms? Yes, fish ingest the plastic thinking it’s food

• Upstream: eliminate single-use plastics
• Substitute other compostable materials for plastics
• Downstream: double our recycling
• Provide safe and secure waste materials
• Stop shipping our wastes overseas

• Use plastic to make useful items such as swimmers’ robes, Barbie Ocean doll, Adidas shoes, sunglasses and bags.
• What can business and consumers do?

Committee Reports

• This was a good fundraiser.
• Was held at the Emerald Arts Society.
• Sally Adams was the facilitator and the subject matter was different to last time’s.
• Other similar events are coming up.
• Kelly wants to go outside the club to get community support and she has succeeded.

• We have two more meetings before we start our nightly barbecues.
• The Train of Lights are lights projected from the train.
• People pay for the ticket.
• 4,250 people over 17 nights are taking the train and we are doing a Sausage Sizzle every night to make a lot of money hopefully.
• Toni-Anne and Roy are on the committee.
• The roster is on each table and John does not want people to just show up, instead put your name in the gaps.
• We are doing an extra night on the first Thursday night and there are free tickets available.
• If members do not take up the tickets, they will be given to friends of Rotary, e.g. Alan the butcher.

• Is on 26th November.
• The planning is well under way.
• We need to get as much sponsorship as possible; currently we have $22,500 in sponsorship but we would like more.
• It costs $5,000 to be a sponsor.
• The beneficiary of the run will be the Monash Medical Children’s Cancer Centre again.

• His Club provided $6,000 worth of plants for a fire-devastated town during Covid.
• Last year and this year, they have run six Business Breakfasts for small businesses doing it tough.
• They are providing educational materials to a small town in Sri Lanka, thanks to a Club member who emigrated from there.
• Our Club looks far livelier than his.

Closing Remarks: President Marcus

• Said “Well done” to Ian on his chairmanship as he caught up the time.
• Thank you to Dr. Bruce for his interesting and informative presentation and for keeping to time.
• We look forward to receiving Sid’s membership application tonight; he is MC’ing our Club Changeover so needs to be a member.
• Thanks to Mal Ferguson for sharing his Club’s projects.
• Thank you to the first time guests for coming and hope you enjoyed the meeting.
• Allan Douglas has gone in for an arthroscope on his knee so may not be attending next week to do his “Behind the Badge” talk.