A couple of days ago, my friend Sara who writes The Daily Ocean let me know that she picked up 4 cigarette butts during her most recent 20 minute beach clean up in Santa Monica (a smoke-free beach). So far Sara has removed 105 cigarettes in 9 beach clean ups. While we have done only 8 beach clean ups at Wrightsville Beach and have removed 2,004 cigarette butts.
The Daily Ocean: Day 130-- July 16, 2010
... Ok. Back to where I was. By day 130, Sara had removed a over 515 lbs of trash from her beach in Santa Monica. By our 130th beach clean up we had only removed 250 lbs of trash from Wrightsville Beach. To me this is SO significant. It boggles my mind a bit... By sheer weight, it would appear that Wrightsville Beach is less littered... that makes me happy. BUT... we pick up 20 times the amount of cigarette butts! Wrightsville Beach (once again) has the opportunity to remove the most littered item on the beach strand... come out to the WB Board of Alderman meeting on April 12 at 6PM. Wear a blue shirt and come support a Smoke-Free WB!
To say Danielle's blog is about picking up litter would be an understatement. Words here cannot fully express the depth of her project and how far reaching it is becoming. Her beach butts project got my attention. How many cigarette butts have I seen on the beach since being here? Tons. And how many had I picked up? Not one. Until now. Danielle and I have made contact and I am doing my part for The Daily Ocean.
Words cannot begin to convey what this means to me... I'm flattered and touched... I'm inspired... I'm motivated. I am grateful.
20 minutes on April 8, 2012 at Access 16
Litter by weight: 8 lbs 1.4 ozCigarette butts: 642
Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach, NC in 131 days:
43,656
Wew, that amount is absurd, considering they were all picked from a beach. Tsk. Let’s hope you’ll pick lesser trashes and cigarette butts every day. How long do you plan on doing this? You should be an inspiration to others. :)
ReplyDelete~Irma Metaxas
Irma,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much :)
My hope is that the town bans smoking on the beach and we see a dramatic decrease in the amount of cigarette litter on the beach strand. Only time will tell.
My plan is to keep doing this until we start to see some major changes (less litter) AND at least until my friend Sara (The Daily Ocean) finishes her 365 non-consecutive beach clean ups in Santa Monica. She's on her way to finishing early fall.
~ Danielle