After I posted my first Our Daily Ocean, my friend Sara who writes The Daily Ocean blog wrote:
"Looks like Danielle and The Bait Tank need to link up huh?! I'm on it."
Nearly 2 months after Sara wrote those words, I was back visiting her in Santa Monica when we met up with Mark (The Bait Tank) to do a 20 minute clean-up in Santa Monica (Lifeguard tower 26, Ocean Park to be exact ;) ).
On Saturday, almost exactly a month from when I was in Santa Monica, Mark made a trip to visit us in Wilmington!! Of course, we had to do a 20 minute clean-up :)
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| Oooppsss... I totally completely utterly forgot to take a picture of the access... this picture is was taken on Oct. 12. |
It was such a beautiful day... the skies were perfect... bluest of blue with big fluffy clouds. Really it was the kind of day that you just sit at the beach and do nothing besides watch the waves (yeah, it may have been beautiful... but it certainly wasn't warm!!) When we originally walked out onto the beach, I didn't have my buckets with me... I was thinking that I would just show Mark Access 16, because I really wanted to go to Access 20 (that's where my family and I picked up 1,833 butts)... BUT as soon as we got to the high tide line Mark was stunned at how many butts were at our feet.... we just had to walk back to my car to get the buckets...
Ok... first things first this was Mark's first time at a North Carolina Beach!!!! AND....besides my family... Mark is the first person to do a clean-up with me!! YAY!! (That being said, I think that I talked more than usual and forgot to take pictures and such...another oops!) There's always next time....
Besides obviously being enamored with how beautiful our beaches are...Mark had a lot of things to say about the amount of cigarette butts we were picking up... I really wish that I had a recording of all of his comments as he picked up butt after butt after butt after butt...."holy s**t" was a common phrase. To say that he was shocked would be a complete understatement. SO... it makes me wonder... when tourists come to Wrightsville Beach (or our other beaches that we took Mark to.... like Carolina Beach or Kure Beach)... what do they think?? Is the beauty of the beach blinding OR do they see what we see??? Hmmm.....
My friend Ginger of the Wrightsville Beach Sea Turtle Project has been doing 20 minute clean-ups at Wrightsville Beach as well. Last week she sent me the "butt count" that she got from around Oceanic: 251 butts!! (Those butts--along with others-- have been added to the "Community Butt Count" on the sidebar)
Ginger also sent me a video of a WB local who takes his own broom, dust pan, and garbage bags to clean up the area he runs at WB... no surprise... he finds the same things on the streets of WB that I find on the beach strand-- cigarette butts:
Ginger also sent me a video of a WB local who takes his own broom, dust pan, and garbage bags to clean up the area he runs at WB... no surprise... he finds the same things on the streets of WB that I find on the beach strand-- cigarette butts:
20 minutes on November 6, 2010
407 cigarette butts
Total amount of cigarette butts picked up off of Wrightsville Beach, NC in 18 days:
8,117
It is just jaw dropping. Really - honestly - speachless. Garen just said, "It is a sad statement on the whole cigarette butt situation." thank you thank you thank you for all that you are doing!
ReplyDeleteIt is jaw dropping... and it was interesting seeing an "outside" perspective... to hear Mark's reactions... especially since he's researched and studied all of this... made me realize even MORE how bad the problem is.
ReplyDeleteGaren is absolutely right... it is a sad statement.
AND... the same can be said for the massive amounts of plastics that are littered and floating around in our oceans... grrr.
I saw this quote... maybe it fits with this vision of a renewed and clean Earth... I don't know... but it makes me feel good:
When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.
- Tuli Kupferberg