A few weeks ago on Friday February 15th I took part in a SOLVe Beach Cleanup. This is not the first, nor the last, beach cleanup that I will participate in but I felt that, since I now have a blog, I should share my passion.
Marine debris is a huge problem in the oceans and on shore. I would say this issue is more prevalent now due to the tsunami a few years ago which hit Japan. This debris is now hitting North American shores, and is piquing the interest of beach-goers and locals. However, they are most interested in large pieces of debris such as docks or personal items which survived the journey. These large pieces are not the problem. As you can see in the pictures below, the problem is the small pieces which have been photodegraded by sunlight while travelling in the ocean.
I walked the beach for about an hour and a half, a total of two miles and only collected what you see in this box below. There were literally no 'big' pieces to collect; and what I did find were left by people who had visited the beach. As you can imagine, picking up every single piece of plastic is virtually impossible, especially if you're one person. So, this blog is an invite to all of my friends and family to join me on March 30th in Lincoln City, or any other beach, to partner with SOLVe to clean up our beaches. But I ask you to ignore the big pieces, some chump will pick those up; I challenge you to pick up the small pieces, without taking a whole bunch of sand and organic matter with you. Are you up to the challenge? Please leave a comment below if you plan on taking action on your own Oregon beaches and preventing this plastic from returning to the ocean where it can wreak havoc on the marine environment.
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