Tomorrow many Mancunians and Salfordians will gather on the left bank of the River Irwell for the 4th annual rubber duck race. Thousands of ducks are tipped into the river and later rounded up downstream. These are all sponsored for the Brainwave Centre charity, which works with families to deliver home-based therapies and exercises to help children with disabilities.
I assume that all the ducks are taken out of the river at the end to be reused the following year rather than add to our polluted rivers and seas... I'm waiting for Spinningfields to confirm this- if they are then I'd support this fun event, but if more resources are used each year to manufacture thousands more ducks unnecessarily, I'd have to hold back on environmental grounds...)
A few summers back we found three rubber ducks on a west Wales beach. They had swum across from Dublin, where they had entered a similar race which started on the River Liffey. They had evidently been washed into the Irish Sea and south-eastwards across to Gywnedd, a journey of around 170 km.
Very much with you Chrissy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. "Plastic fantastic" is not always fantastic! But the event has a very good cause, so I wish them good luck!
ReplyDeleteI'm with you I hope they don't float off to add to the ever growing rubbish in the oceans
ReplyDeleteWe have had these done in the past here on the canal, but I don't think it's been done in a couple of years or so. It was also for charity, and the ducks could be rounded up afterwards.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree! I always have very mixed feelings about festivals that use food for decoration and fighting too - seems like such a waste when people are starving. It's a real quandary.
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