Our Daily Ocean: Day 111

Ever since we moved to Wilmington, it has been a sort of tradition to go to the beach at Christmas.  True, it all started as a way to brag to our family and friends in the midwest, but now we find it's sort of a way to brag to ourselves about how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place and how much we love it here.

There is something so amazing about spending Christmas at the beach.  AND... since I'm not much for cold weather... this was one of the best Christmases ever!  This girl doesn't need snow...   Running around and playing on the beach barefoot is my kind of Christmas!! :)

Of course, we did more than play at the beach.  Christmas is about giving... so my kids and I gave Wrightsville Beach the gift of a 20 minute beach clean up!

At first, the beach didn't look too bad.  Some littered cigarette butts along the tideline, but overall not much... UNTIL... at about 5 minutes into the clean up I decided to go up to the beach grasses... then I found a huge area packed full of caps, straws, styrofoam, various plastics, and cigarette butts.  As I was picking up all the litter, I heard a rustling in the grasses... and then saw a rabbit dart away from where I was. :)  In that same area, I found a couple of tubes of Chapstick which immediately made me think about the plastic-free Organic Essence lip balm that I recently purchased through the recommendation of a friend.  Besides being plastic-free (the tube is paper and compostable!!), it's also petroleum-free... and I dig that :)

I also dig it because I'm a believer in the fact that change has to start somewhere.

20 minutes on December 25, 2011 at Access 38

Litter by weight: 14.3 oz
Cigarette butts: 588

Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach in 111 days:

37,638