After walking down Bahia Honda Beach in the scorching heat
filling up bags of garbage, it really made me realize how bad our plastic and
pollution problem is. In just one hour we all collected about 15 bags plus some
buckets, pieces of furniture, and industrialized sized rope. Bottle caps,
shoes, and plastic baggies were the most commonly found items. Some plastic
bottles that we found were still completely in tact after being in the ocean
for 30+ years. Most plastic bottles can take up to 450 years or more to
decompose while some other plastic items can take up to 1000 years. Even after
the 1000-year mark, tiny plastic particles still roam the ocean and are eaten
by many small fish and other marine creatures. The shoes that we collected were
basically all completely in tact as well. Rubber soled shoes can take up to 80
years to decompose. That means shoes from World War II are just now starting to
disappear out of the water ways.
Styrofoam was another commonly found material on the beach.
This is one of the worst materials because it is not at all biodegradable, it
will stay in the water forever. Tinfoil also never biodegrades and aluminum
cans will take up to 250 years to biodegrade. All these items are popular for
people to bring onto the beach and then leave behind when they are finished.
However, a lot of these things can easily be switched out for environmentally
friendly materials. For example, forks, spoons, and straws that are made from
bamboo will decompose quickly and are not harmful to marine life when left in
the ocean. Plastic bags and bottles can be replaced by reusable containers. Or
use glass bottles and paper products when possible as they decompose much quicker
than plastic.
There are many simple and easy ways everyone can contribute
to keep our oceans and beaches clean. Skip the straw, recycle when necessary, and
just pick up after yourself after enjoying your day at the beach so others don’t
have to do it for you.
The amount of trash we picked up during that cleanup was disgusting, especially since we only did it for an hour. It really put into perspective how much trash we put into the environment as humans.
ReplyDeleteIt is shocking how much trash humans leave everywhere they go, when i was younger we would clean the local woods and we literally would fill several Large trash bags to the brim each time that we went out for a clean up walk. Shockingly enough each time we would come back to clean up the same area it was as if our entire cleanup that we had just done was reversed and new trash was now where we had just cleaned. Humans as a whole need to take much more drastic measure in order to combat our pollution problem.
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