Beach cleanup...

If you've been reading here for a while, you'll know that I love going to visit my dad at the beach. It's been about 7 months since my last trip to Ventura, California, but when I first climbed over the sand dunes and actually saw the beach, I was shocked. Gone was the beach as I've always known it. The angry waves had taken over, tossing rocks, driftwood, and debris almost up to where the dunes started.

As I introduced SunStars to my love of searching for sea glass, I was almost immediately disheartened to be picking up all sorts of bits of plastics and styrofoam. In the past, most of what washed up on the beach was water bottles or large full-sized containers for things like laundry detergent or soaps. On this trip, the seaweed was full of bottle caps, straws, single-use plastic utensils, and other bits and pieces of plastic and styrofoam (not microscopic, but definitely smaller than a dime).

It made my heart hurt, so on day one, SunStars and I picked up as much as we could fit into our pockets and on day 2, we brought a big (biodegradable) bag and collected as much as we could. I was amazed to see how many people were having their morning coffee on the beach and who just watched us clean up. Even if we started cleaning close to where people were standing, they still didn't stop their chit chat to pick up any bits or bobs that may have been near them. So frustrating!

One guy thanked us for helping to clean up his beach and then wandered away, not doing anything about the 4 bottle caps directly in his path. A couple of people who work for the state drove by in their little golf cart and watched us. One more gentleman thanked us and told us that we had inspired him to bring a bucket down to the beach later in the day so he could continue out cleanup. I can only hope that he followed through.

I'm glad that SunStars and I were able to put a small dent in the amount of trash that had piled up and that, hopefully, we were able to inspire a few others to do the same!