On Thursday evening, over an hour before we started our 20 minute clean up, my son came across a plastic bottle at his feet in the ocean and came running to show me that it was filled with sand. (who does that??)
My kids and I spent a whopping 5 hours hanging out at access 36 with some friends.... we watched people come and go... we played... we picked up random pieces of litter... we ate dinner... my son & husband got stung by a jellyfish (ouch!!)... and we did our usual 20 minute clean up.... just another day at the beach! :)
When I first started doing these 20 minute clean ups, I had no idea how bad cigarette butt litter really was. Sure I knew that they were the most littered item worldwide... somewhere around 4.5 trillion are littered every single year. But what I didn't know was that the fact that as soon as a cigarette butt comes in contact with water, it begins leaching all of the nastiness it was designed to trap...
Before last night, it had been almost exactly a month since our last visit to access 36. Truth is, I've been consciously avoiding going there. A little after our last visit, I (got over my fears and) made a phone call to the district manager of the restaurant group that owns Oceanic. We ended the conversation on a good note... he was going to get the ball rolling on fixing two major problems: Straws and a high volume of littered cigarette butts in an employee break area. I wanted to give Oceanic plenty of time to work on these problems before heading back... my hopes were high... BUT... not much different than last time... I picked up 73 cigarette butts in the employee break area. :( I'm happy to share that Oceanic is committed to fixing this problem and I'm committed to helping make sure this isn't the norm....
OK.... now straws.... we picked up a total of 60 straws during our 20 minute clean up. Are you ready??? A whopping 53 of those straws came from the Oceanic dining pier!!! 31 of the straws were clear and the other 22 were the black sipping/stirring straws. Insane!! One of the easiest things to go without is straws!! It does take some practice, but it's as easy as saying, "No straws please." (Thank you in advance for going without a straw!)
As I talked to the district manager of Oceanic today, he let me know that they were looking into biodegradable straws like the ones made from corn. BUT... the biodegradable straws are 4x more expensive than their plastic counterparts! We talked about some different solutions, including having the waitstaff ask customers on the pier if they need a straw. I'm wondering if anyone else has some suggestions for how Oceanic can fix this problem?? I'm sure Oceanic would appreciate any feasible ideas... contact them here.
20 minutes on August 11, 2011
Cigarette butts: 545
Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach, NC in 86 days:
26,345
Hmmm... maybe instead of giving out straws with each drink they could put a cup full of straws on each table. That way people who want one can take one and those who don't can just ignore them. I wonder if that would make a difference in the number of straws taken?
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on talking to the manager of Oceanic -- that takes courage and it's great that you did it! It's unbelievable that there was no change in the number of cigarette butts and straws. The cigarette butt problem doesn't seem like it would be a hard one for the manager to fix -- just talk to the employees and provide a receptacle for the butts. Putting myself in the manager's position, the straw problem does seem tougher. Imagine if the restaurant bought glass straws for its customers? That would be so great! Short of doing that, though, maybe they could put up a sign explaining why straws in the outside seating area are a problem, and asking people to do without a straw if possible. It's similar to what hotels ask people to do in reusing towels more than once. I would imagine that most people would respond positively.
ReplyDeleteHi! I clean beaches near my home town of Falmouth, Cornwall, UK. I wondered about the bottles filled with, in my case, pebbles - turns out dog owners fill up the bottles so they can throw them for their dogs. I also find loads of bits of foam balls that dogs have chewed up and the owners have not picked up.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your hard work.
You are most welcome on the posting of the film. :) I know Sara too and sent her bags for her beach clean up. Would you like some? You can email me at:
ReplyDeletegreenbagladyteresa(at)gmail(dot)com
I, too, have been very anti-plastic straws for quite a while. I find them almost totally useless and usually unnecessary. I always tell waiters in restaurants "no straws, please.". And at a fast food place I never use a plastic lid or straw when I'm just drinking it in the restaurant. Back in the stone age, when I was a kid, we had paper straws. They didn't last for a long time in a drink, but that was also their beauty!
ReplyDeleteThank you all for the suggestions! I will definitely pass them along! :)
ReplyDeleteCalling the manager wasn't the easiest thing for me, but I figure there's no reason getting all frustrated or talking about it all the time if I'm not going to (at least) try to help fix this problem. When I first talked to the DM, I suggested paper straws (told him they use them at Disney's Animal Kingdom & Seaworld), but for some reason they looked into the corn-based plastics. ($$) Personally, I'd really like them not offer straws on the dining pier... I would hope that most people would understand. I'm thinking that I need to connect the DM to my friend Bonnie.. she has designed kids coloring/activity placemats about plastics & our oceans... it could be a really great fit :)
@cleaningbeaches Never would have even thought about people using them for dogs! Dogs aren't allowed on our beach from April through September... someone mentioned to me that parents give their kids the water bottles to drink, then when they're finished they (the kids) fill it with sand as they're playing. (?? sounds feasible right?)