KampKrug

North Beach cleanup effort - great job team! Say "TRAAAAASH!"

Plastic and all kinds of other stuff - even huge grapefruits - wash up on the beaches here, and everywhere. In the winter it seems like the north-facing beaches get the most, and in the summer it’s the south-west facing beaches. We pick up trash every time we go to the beach, but today was special - it was a team effort among a couple moms and their kids. In a short stretch of sand - maybe 0.2 miles - and one hour later we hauled away 44 pounds of trash. That’s as much as one seven-year old weighed. (Or Sam when he was 4!) The gang made some paintings with watercolors mixed with ocean water and paintbrushes from hala trees, then glued on trash pieces to make art. Where does all this trash come from? While cruise ships get most of the blame, international convention signed by 139 nations (MARFOR Annex V specifically) prohibits dumping plastic anywhere. You might be surprised to know that other waste can be dumped outside territorial waters (3 miles offshore). I wish we had a zero-waste society but that just isn’t possible. The best we can do is repurpose and recycle, and teach our kids the value of protecting the land, the oceans, and ultimately our own health since we’re at the top of the food chain.