International Coastal Cleanup Day

What is International Coastal Cleanup Day?   It is the day that hundreds of thousands of volunteers clean up our coastlines – removing the trash that plagues these areas.  Each year it is held on the third Saturday of September.  Through the years it has become a global movement with over 6 million volunteers across 90 countries! 

So how did International Coastal Cleanup day start?  Believe it or not, it started with the dedication and passion of two individuals (Linda Maraniss and Kathy O’Hara) who worked at a place called the Ocean Conservancy. So, when you ask yourself, what difference can one person make?  Well, here is the difference one person (or two) can make!  Before I elaborate more upon the day, let me tell you a little bit more about the Ocean Conservancy.  The Ocean Conservancy is a nonprofit environmental advocacy group. Its mission as you may have guessed from its name – is to save our oceans.  Its goal is to protect the ocean from today’s global challenges.  It has various programs that seek to promote ocean justice, prevent marine pollution and understand the effects of climate change on the ocean. 

However, International Coastal Cleanup day is not solely about removing the trash from our beaches.  Not that that isn’t a lofty enough goal. Its goal is to find a solution.  Volunteers are asked to not only collect the trash, but also to document it.  What types of trash are entering our oceans and other waters through the coastlines? The data is then used to come up with a proposed solution on how best to address the problem.  Combining volunteering with data collection – what an amazing concept!  

The most common type of marine waste is plastic, such as cigarette butts, plastic bottles, plastic straws, food wrappers and so on.  I am sure that you are wondering how cigarette butts are considered plastic.  I was wondering the same exact thing.  Along with the fact that after all the studies on cancer, why people are still smoking at all, but that is for another post.  Most cigarette filters are made out of cellulose acetate which is a plastic-like material and degrades the same way that plastic does.   

Anyway, back to the main point of the post, as we are well aware at this point or should be well aware of, plastic is one of the most dangerous materials because it never fully disintegrates.  Plastic is non-biodegradable!  It breaks down into tiny little pieces called microplastics.  According to published estimates, there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean. Trillions!!! Can you imagine how harmful that is for our oceans and marine life?

So how do these trillions of pieces of plastic enter our oceans?  Primarily from being disposed of improperly.  Either the items are thrown out on the beach or into the water directly or they are otherwise not discarded of properly and are transported into our waters through runoff or stormwater.  

Now that we know that plastic is the largest form of debris in our waters, you might be asking, well, exactly how harmful is plastic?  The answer is very.  I am trying to think of a more poignant word than “very” to make my point clear enough, but unfortunately all such words are escaping me at the moment. Plastic is extremely harmful for a number of reasons.  Plastic injures and kills fish, birds and other sea life.  These animals mistake the plastic for food and ingest it, causing injury or even death.  It can also cause starvation because the animals think that they are full from eating the plastic (which is obviously not food).  Thousands of sea animals are also killed each year by getting entangled in plastic.  Also, did you know that the UV rays from the sun also cause plastic to break down into microplastics? So, our climate crisis is not exactly helping the situation. It is only exacerbating an already problematic issue.  

Plastic pollution has become a significant problem for our oceans and that is why events such as the International Coastal Cleanup Day are so important. Did you know that certain studies have determined that by the year 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans?  Now that is a scary thought.  At least it is to me.  You might not be as huge a Dr. Seuss fan the way that I am, but this situation reminds me of the first several lines of one of my favorite books:

One fish

Two fish

Red fish 

Blue fish

Black fish

Blue fish

Old fish

New fish

Say what a lot of fish there are…..  

Don’t we want to be able to say that too?