Amanda’s First Beach Clean Up

Mission accomplished! I finally partook in my first beach clean up, and it was a success! I don’t think I could have asked for a more gorgeous day in NYC. The sun was shining, there was a light breeze, it wasn’t hot or cold, but despite the beautiful weather, there was A LOT of trash to be picked up!

I arrived at Brooklyn Bridge Park at 1:00pm, which was low tide. There were many other friendly faces of individuals from all walks of life ready and eager to pitch in. Our leader, Sarah, provided us with large trash bags, gloves, tools for picking up the garbage, and waders (those funny looking waterproof pants held up with straps that have shoes attached) for those of us daring enough to venture out into the water. We were also supplied with clipboards and checklists, provided by the Ocean Conservancy, to document the items we collected. This data is crucial to the Conservancy to monitor not only how much trash is being collected, but also what kinds are more prevalent in what areas, and other trends.

At first glance, the beach looked fairly clean to me. However, once I really started looking around, I felt like I wasn’t traveling very far very fast because there were so many small things hidden in the rocks. It was kind of like looking at the stars. Once you look at one really hard, you notice so many more around it. Except, of course, this was trash.

The vast majority of what I picked consisted of cigarette butts and plastic items such as straws, water bottle caps, and pieces of food packaging. There were a lot of glass bottle caps as well. In addition, other cleaners found a tire, fishing net, plastic bags, glass, etc.

I concluded that if we can all just stop smoking and using plastic, the impact that these small changes would have on the environment would be astonishing.

I was very inspired to see how eager everyone was to help out. There was an immediate sense of community, and it was very enjoyable because everyone who was there sincerely wanted to be. Everyone was working hard to clean as much as they could, and by the number and size of trash bags that were piled at the end of the day, I was shocked at how much trash everyone collected! This was a great bonus to the wedding that crashed our clean up. I’m sure they were very thankful for the newly cleaned shore to have as a backdrop for their ceremony.

I left the beautiful Brooklyn Beach Park clean up with a warm fuzzy feeling (and no it wasn’t just a sunburn) because I had helped make a difference, even if it was very  small in the grand scheme of things. Looking at the beach while packing up my belonging, I noticed a visible difference. It truly is amazing what we can all accomplish together! I encourage all of you to participate in a clean up. If you aren’t by a coast, clean up a park or marsh, or anywhere there may be trash, which should be very easy to find!

I was able to get some footage of the clean up, so stayed tuned for the video!

For more info, check out the Ocean Conservancy, or head to the Brooklyn Bridge Park's website. Here's a link to clean up sites in NYC too: http://www.alsnyc.org/

If life's a beach, let's keep it clean!

Growing up in California’s Bay Area, I have always had great love, awe, and appreciation for the ocean. Thinking about it now, the seed of my fascination with the ocean may have been planted when I saw my first movie in theaters, The Little Mermaid. After seeing it, and of course watching it over and over again at home, I always regarded the ocean’s undulating surface as an expansive blue curtain shielding another world filled with creatures beyond our wildest imagination.

While I am not a believer in mermaids, yes it’s unfortunate; I still regard the ocean with the same astonishment that I did when I was a child. I spent about 8 years of my young life dreaming of being an oceanographer. Why didn’t I fulfill my dream you ask? It all came to an end on career day when I listened to a real life oceanographer speak for the first time. I fell asleep to him talking about plankton, and mind you I rarely fell asleep in class, and I awoke to him still talking about plankton. He then ended his speech saying “Remember kids, don’t do it for the money”. I left the classroom knowing that was, in fact, not the career path for me. However, I still love the ocean, and know that we must do something NOW to help reverse the damage we have caused to the health of our oceans and all of it’s inhabitants.

Hearing about floating plastic land masses the size of Texas in the middle of the ocean, seeing pictures of birds covered in oil from recent oil spills, and watching the documentary The Cove, is enough to break my heart and make me sick thinking about how humans have trashed, disrespected, and taken advantage of our ocean. Our health is directly linked to its health, which is why I strongly believe we need to do something, together as a human race, and also as individuals on a daily basis.

I was going to pack this blog post with scientific facts about the ocean’s current state, but really do I need to? We all know the ice caps are melting, the ocean is littered with plastic, and its inhabitants are dying because of man made plastic materials and fishing equipment. The ocean also recently received a 60 out of a possible 100 as it’s current overall health score. I know for a fact that if I went home to my Mom with a 60 as my grade on a test, she would be very disappointed. That’s not a score that makes it onto the refrigerator.

While I can sit around all day worried about the state of ocean, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is. I will be participating, and filming beach clean ups over the next two weekends here in NYC, and dedicating my blog posts to reporting back all that I discover.

There are so many simple things we can do to make a difference. For example, and this is one I’ve really been trying to work on myself, let’s ban the plastic bags! Let’s also stop buying water bottles, or at least limit the amount we do buy, replacing them with reusable containers. Lastly, at the very least, let’s make sure to pick up our trash!

Here are a couple links to websites with detailed info about our ocean’s current condition.

Ocean Facts

Ocean Health Index

I look forward to participating in my first beach clean-up, and encourage all of you out there, be it near the coast or not, to pick up trash. Maybe even just one piece of trash everyday, even if it’s not yours. Think about what a difference that would make if we all actually did it!

I’ll be reporting back next week, so stay tuned!