This was what I was confronted with when I arrived at work this morning. Winds from the south west and a high tide during the night deposited a large amount of trash all along the shoreline. Not a pleasant sight to rock up to.
People don't seem to learn and they just dump their trash in rivers and on the ground. it all makes its way into the ocean. It's a global disgrace. It took 20 years of campaigning in the west to drill into people that this was socially and morally & ethically wrong. Let's hope it doesn't take as long in these parts of the world. People are trying and local dive shops here have been going into schools to educate the youth as if we are to have any chance of this message sinking in we need to get to peoples minds early.
Working in the Scuba Industry it's an obvious part of what we do. Making people aware, caring about the environment and doing something about it. It really is a daily practice and should be part of what everyone does no matter what industry you work in. See trash pick it up. It really is that simple.
But the problem is the majority of everyday folk just seem to see it as someone elses issue. They can see it there but just ignore it. Maybe as it's normal to them but this isn't something that people should see as normal. Living in garbage really should not be the norm. As I said we do this everyday anyway so we just got into action and got stuck in to a slightly larger task than is the daily trash norm. As we are not massively busy I have plenty of hands to help. As the saying goes, many hands make light work.
Amazing how with only a handful of people you can easily clear a section of the coast in a few hours. If only more establishments just made it part of their routine rather than ignoring it. They all happily participate in any organised "Clean Up Day" but there are in my view 365 clean up days in most years and 366 every 4 years 😉. No excuse. Just do it. We all benefit.
There are many reasons as to how it gets here in the first place A lot of them to do with how they package and distribute small amounts of product to people who are unable to afford to buy in larger quantities. This need to be addressed as it's more than possible to distribute these products in small amounts in a different way. Eliminate part of the problem at source.
So we made a dent along the coast here. I have no doubt more will wash up during the day but we will continue to do this daily as remember....
