Look Closer - Sanders Beach Cleanup

On Aug 24, 2019, Ocean Hour held one of their weekly cleanups at Sanders Beach, a small little area just off of Main Street. It's mostly rocky area, but it's next to a playground and a peaceful walkway.

At first glance, the beach is pristine, clean, and free of litter. There should be no need to clean it.

But look closer.

How many pieces of trash can you see?

Ocean Hour worked to clean the beach for one hour. And yet we managed to collect 95 lbs of trash.

Seems impossible, right?

But those 95 lbs of trash were an accumulation of multiple little things. Straws, wrappers, bottle caps, plastic containers, styrofoam, and string are just a few of the things that we managed to collect.

Just looking a little closer reveals the amount of trash that might otherwise go unnoticed.

We pulled bottles and bags from underneath bushes, in between rocks, and even in the water. Bottle caps and Styrofoam were nestled in the brush while pieces of paper and plastic were littered all over the beach.

Ocean Hour and I only worked for an hour on the beach. I remained in a single section of the beach that was perhaps the size of a small room. Still, I found about 8 pounds of trash hidden where I didn't expect to find it.

In just twenty minutes, I managed to find two cans and a large plastic cup, with plastic bags and wrappers floating around in the bucket of trash

By the end of the cleanup, I had a bucketful of trash that included plastic cups, glass bottles, food wrappers, and pieces of plastic packaging that had been tossed aside.

The one thing I noticed?

The bulk of the objects were small.

Sure, the bottles and cups took up the most space in my bucket, but most of what I picked up could be considered things to be tossed aside, like wrappers and plastic tabs from packages.

I'm sure many of us are guilty of dropping a piece of trash on the ground because we think it's too small to matter. But this cleanup is evidence of what happens when an entire town does that. The little things may seem like they don't matter, but everything counts in the fight for the environment. Everything builds and accumulates. Just like how everyone together can help fight climate change, every single apathetic attitude can result in 95 pounds of little things spread over a beach.

TL;DR - The little things matter. That little bit of packaging may blow away in the wind, but it will accumulate in the crevices until it's too late.

Your Challenge: Try to pick up every piece of trash you make. Don't let anything fall away and think "It's just a wrapper, it's fine." Take a few extra seconds and put your wrappers and bottles in nearby recycling bins or trash cans. If you see trash on the ground, even if it's just a straw wrapper or a small piece of paper, pick it up and throw it away. Look closer at what you see and help keep the Earth clean.

Live Green Everyone!