Today I went for a walk on the beach and also had a big bag with me to collect garbage. I often went for a walk there, it's not really dirty at first sight. So I was curious to see what I would find when I took a closer look.
There is actually relatively little rubbish washed up here on the Baltic coast. Mainly I found various plastics - packaging material, various small plastic pieces, bottle caps, etc. Extremely striking were yellow polystyrene parts (or something like that), which were spread over the whole 1,5 km long beach section. Partly these pieces were very big, but sometimes also very small. That was quite frustrating at some point. I also found two - I say - curious things: a tennis ball and a fly swatter!
(Small) plastic pieces washed up with seaweed.
Left: See how close the water is washed to this little piece of plastic.
And then there was a place where I found a lot of colorful confetti (not made of paper but of metallic foil). I tried to pick up as much of it as possible, but it was very tedious. The individual confetti pieces were sometimes only a few millimetres in size!
Above: The tennis ball I've found.
Left: A small part of the confetti I picked up.
There are many walkers on the beach and people walking their dogs - especially on weekends the beach is a popular destination for a walk. It occurred to me that if only 1/5 of the people who regularly go there take a garbage bag at least once a week and at least pick up what they find, it would be much cleaner.
A woman who was walking her dog spoke to me and said that she thinks it's great that I collect the garbage and thanked me for it. She told me that she and her family often go on holiday in the Canary Islands and that they always collect the garbage on the beach. After all a beginning. But I said that it was much better to do something for the environment at home. Maybe I made her think about it...
Maybe he thought I was stealing his food?
Before and after: I also found this balloon which was wrapped around this branch together with a string and the sea grass. Luckily I had my utility knife in my pocket, because it was the only way I could remove all the cords.
What I collected is very little compared to other regions in the world - but still too much! Most of the garbage was washed up with algae and seaweed, but animals (birds) also feed on the washed up seaweed and so there is a danger that they simply eat the small plastic particles that hide inside.
Everyone can do something to make our environment cleaner. You don't have to carry a garbage bag all the time and collect everything, but at least do it once in a while. Make sure you don't throw away your garbage carelessly when you're on the road. That alone is a start.
What I also found: a small dead fish and a dead bird lying on the beach. Of course, the cause of death can be natural for both. But who knows for sure?
