by Mo O’Connor, Teacher Presentation Secondary School Tralee.
Wipe Up Tralee Bay Team from Presentation Secondary School, Tralee, Senior Water winners at this year’s EcoUNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards 2025, held in Dublin on Tuesday the 8th of May.
This project seeks to spread the message that sustainable alternatives are available for many single use plastics in our lives, including wet wipes. Not only protecting biodiversity in Tralee Bay but helping us to save money and save our skin.
A staggering amount of marine litter along Kerry coasts is disposable wet wipes, camouflaged into the seaweed and forming strings of wet wipes that bleed microplastics and chemicals into our local waters. This alone poses a threat to biodiversity, yet to think that on top of plastic pollution in Tralee Bay, the Environment Protection Agency’s Urban Waste Water Treatment report 2021 revealed Tralee Bay as needing works to prevent wastewater causing harm to rivers, lakes, estuaries, and coastal waters. Migratory waders brent geese, among a whole host of endangered species rely on Tralee Bay and its surrounding waters for food and refuge during the winter months.
Marine life and birds in Tralee Bay, already facing the possibility of extinction, now having to battle plastic pollution is what pushed this project into action for Presentation Secondary School, students Molly O Connor, Abby Stephenson and Anisha Choudhry. The project was supported by Tralee Tidy Towns and LAWPRO. Their Eco UNESCO project aims to tackle the issue of microplastic and chemical saturated wet wipes ending up on coastlines around the Special Protection Area ‘Tralee Bay’.
‘Tralee Bay is an incredibly special place for such rich and diverse creatures. Whilst working on our project we learnt so much about migratory birds in our area, the skates and rays of Tralee Bay and how to attempt to tackle this problem from the roots’ Transition Year student at Presentation Secondary School Abby Stephenson comments. ‘Our wastewater treatment plants aren't working hard enough; insufficient government funding means our waterways aren’t properly protected and people still use single use wet wipes with an alarming number of these wet wipes are ending up on our shores.’
Molly O Connor reflects on her experience with the Eco UNESCO competition adding ‘We were very lucky to win the senior water category at the Eco UNESCO YEA finals in Dublin this year. We were up against many impressive teams who were doing great work to help the environment. Our project focused on protecting the marine life in our local Tralee Bay which is a SAC/special area of conservation, by discouraging use of disposable wet wipes and pushing people to use sustainable alternatives. 50% of all ‘flushable’ wet wipes contain seriously harmful microplastics. We decided that an effective way of going about tackling this prevalent and local problem would be peer education and spreading awareness throughout our community. We presented our project to first year students to inform them about the issue. We had the opportunity to speak with Deirdre Walsh on Radio Kerry, which was a great opportunity to spread our message to a wider audience. We were fortunate enough to receive talks from many experts such as ornithologist Ed Carty and MTU lecturer Louise Ovary.’
‘Presentation Secondary School students and Tidy Towns should be commended for their efforts in this project trying to find a solution to the problem of wet wipes in Cockleshell beach. This project is addressing one of four key pressures on water quality focusing on the urban wastewater pressure, LAWPRO are delighted that their efforts were rewarded in this award and look forward to future collaborations.’ Colum Walsh, LAWPRO notes.
Tralee Tidy Towns were also key to this project's success, with mentorship from Martha Farrell offering guidance and important connections. ‘We were really delighted to see this project receive national recognition. These students have been a pleasure to work with and are a credit to their school. We would like to thank the girls for the time and enthusiasm they invested. We also thank their teacher Mo O Connor for her dedication to environmental projects and for going above and beyond for her students.’ Martha Farrell Tralee Tidy Towns.
‘The TYs students really had an opportunity to take action and make a difference in protecting their local environment and isn’t that what Transition year is all about. The Eco UNESCO competition win, was a bonus on top of all of the skills, experience and knowledge the girls developed from participating in the project. Between live radio interviews, newspaper articles, presentations, litter picks and organising many peer education events it is wonderful to see the students become empowered and fight for a cause they believe in. It was great to see them collaborate with LAWPRO and Tralee Tidy Towns reaching out into the community.’
