Every year, thousands of worn out sails are discarded all over Ireland. Picker Pals, an Irish environmental action programme for primary school children, is rescruing this fabric and give it a new lease of life. The programme needs any old small boat sails that might be clogging up attics, crowding out sheds or gumming up garages.
The sails all go to the Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun where they are crafted into Picker Packs which contains a child and adult litter-picking tool as well as gloves, hi-vis vests and fun environmental story and activity books. The Picker Pack is taken home by a different student every weekend. The family then go on a litter picking adventure in their local area with the child reporting back to their classmades. Over 200 classrooms schools have signed up in every county on the island of Ireland.
“We now urgently need that lovely sailcloth. It’s perfect for our requirements and it’s gratifying to be able to divert it from landfill,” Patrick Jackson, creator of the programme told us. “We’re looking for Laser, Oppie, Mirror, Pico, Squib, GP14 and any similar weight samall boats sails. Unfortunately, heavier sails from larger boats can’t be used at the moment. We’ll take anything that is not too mouldy or dirty and be putting the fabric to good use immediately.”
People who are able to donate sails should fill in the form on the Picker Pals Website (www.pickerpalsworld.org)
The world faces a global crisis of waste in the environment. Every part of the naturl world is affected. We urgently need to find real, practical solutions to this crisis. Raising awareness and actually rolling up our sleeves is an essential part of the solution. Picker Pals does just that by giving young people and their families the tools and positive motivation to steward their local environments. This is a great opportunity for all small boat sailors and their associations to get involved and make a reas practical difference, save this beautiful fabric from landfill and support a new generation of young environmentalists.
This is the link to the form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAlpQLScBv4wKU_drMaEZKYdVTCSIH4M9gg71aT4xVzQ3bNvgltmt3Q/viewform
