Kelly Tarlton’s: preaching planet preservation while peddling plastic pollution

Retail greenwashing is endangering our planet, and New Zealand’s Sea Life Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium is a prime offender. When I called them out on this they tried to silence me.

The inconvenient truth about our convenient throwaway culture is that there is no ‘away’. Plastics are saturating our oceans, waterways and landscapes, infiltrating our food-chain, drinking water and now even our own bodies. We can’t recycle our way out of this mess — we need to stop plastic pollution at source. Now.

As a Public Health doctor I share the views of the UN and the WHO: plastic pollution is a global environmental and health emergency which, together with climate change, threatens the very survival of our planet and humankind. Remedial action, now urgent, is possible, but requires drastic behavioural change from each one of us and strong leadership from government and businesses. Despite the gravity of the situation, prevailing attitudes are a dangerous blend of ignorance, denial and apathy. Although some consumers are slowly waking up, most politicians remain asleep at the wheel while businesses prioritise profit over planet and people.

One of the most insidious practices perpetuating the plastic pollution crisis and deferring implementation of proper solutions is greenwashing. This is the disingenuous use of marketing to portray an organisation’s products, activities or policies as environmentally sustainable when they are not. And the supreme award for this in NZ this year goes to Sea Life Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium. This aquarium is named after the late conservationist Kelly Tarlton and is branded as a bastion of ocean conservation and sustainability.

A recent visit revealed a number of measures that to the untrained eye portray Kelly Tarlton’s as a true champion for this cause. There’s the heart-melting turtle rescue station, the reusable KeepCups and disposable ‘eco-cups’, and a display outside the gift shop showcasing the reduction, reuse and recycling of plastics (notably absent is ‘refuse’ which is usually first in the hierarchical ‘refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, rot’ mantra). The shop also has signs smugly proclaiming that plastic packaging has been reduced by 46%, and that all trinkets bearing the Kelly Tarltons logo have been made from recycled plastic.

My greenwashing detector goes into overdrive however when I see what is for sale. The photos here speak for themselves. In the cafe are shelves of beverages in plastic bottles, and snacks wrapped in single-use plastics. The so-called eco-cups are ‘false solutions’ — they are commercially compostable only, and guess what, there’s no compost bin provided, so likely these are straight to landfill or litter. Step one foot into the gift shop and I’m awash in a sea of non-essential plastic merchandise, much of it in single-use plastic packaging. Kelly Tarlton would be dismayed to find his own biography wrapped in soft plastic. There are also ‘hidden’ plastics for sale: plastic-containing clothing and soft toys. And those trinkets made from recycled plastic? Where will they eventually end up? Recycled plastic is still plastic, which cannot be recycled indefinitely so ultimately is destined for disposal.

None of these items are necessary. They are clearly being marketed to children and their purpose is obvious — revenue generation. To maximise bang for buck the gift shop is strategically located so that customers must pass through it in order to reach the exit. The sad irony is the very audience that is being targeted with these trashy plastics is the same one who will bear the impact of ecosystem crisis in a generation’s time or less when it is projected there will be more plastic than fish in the sea.

All this is cause for concern. However equally concerning is Sea Life Kelly Tarlton’s stonewalling. I respectfully pointed out the apparent hypocrisy via their Facebook page and website feedback platform. Instead of taking ownership and outlining any plans to improve sustainability they deleted the Facebook post and review, blocked further communication from me on Facebook and failed to respond to the website enquiry. In 21st century Aotearoa I find this attempted suppression shocking and it reeks of culpability and cover-up.

I call upon Sea Life Kelly Tarlton’s to drop the greenwashing act and step up as a genuine sustainability leader. The solution is not more recycling — it’s stopping plastic pollution at source. I challenge Kelly Tarlton’s to: 1. Join the zero-waste business movement 2. Stop the sale of all plastic-containing and otherwise environmentally unsustainable items (e.g. single-use plastic bottles, disposable coffee cups and lids, packaged junk food, plastic-containing toys and trinkets, synthetic soft toys and clothing, plastic-packaged toys, trinkets and books) 3. Replace the above items with sustainable options and if they are not available do not offer them 4. Be 100% accountable and transparent around their environmental footprint 5. Respond constructively to consumer feedback rather than blocking it.

I also call on all businesses to follow suit, for Government to adopt Greenpeace’s Plastic-Free NZ action plan and for each and every one of us as consumers to be responsible for the impacts of our daily choices. Are you really prepared to eat, drink and bathe in plastic for the sake of a little short-term convenience? Will you forgo our oceans for that plastic bottle? Will you turn a blind eye to greenwashing?

When the children of today, cleaning up the mess we’ve left them tomorrow, look you in the eye and ask “what did you do?”, what will you say?

Don’t throw away tomorrow for the sake of a convenient today. Stop plastic pollution at source.