Our Daily Ocean: Day 157

This past Saturday was Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup day!  If you're unfamiliar with ICC, it's the worlds largest volunteer effort for ocean health.   With our locally scheduled event being a couple of weeks away, I decided to do my own cleanup at Wrightsville Beach.

When it comes to ICC, one of the main things that happens is that EVERYTHING is counted and tallied.  Volunteers tallying trash from the shores of lakes, rivers, streams and the ocean has the ability to show us the BIG picture of the major trash problems found all over the world.    

One thing that I always try to reiterate here is that Wrightsville Beach is a beautiful beach and the litter problems here are not just a Wrightsville Beach problem.  With every beach clean up we do at our local beach, it only paints a small picture to what is a global problem.  But, here's the thing that is important to remember about the "small local" picture:  Solutions to global problems start at the local level.  If we want to begin to change a global problem, we first have to start locally.

And when we start locally, we first have to look at ourselves and our own personal habits.  Take a look at the TOP TEN ITEMS FOUND chart (above).  When I first started doing beach cleanups, I asked myself:  "What things do I use on this list?  How can I begin to help change this?"  

Repeat after me.

Change starts with me... 

I am part of the solution... 

I am the difference.

20 minutes on September 15, 2012 at Access 16

Litter by weight: 6.7 oz
Cigarette butts: 131

Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach, NC in 157 days:

50,260