Since my last found on the beach post there have been some definite improvements to my favorite beach. Judging by the marks in the sand, they did that thing where they just plow everything into a dumpster. It gets rid of all the driftwood, a lot of the sand, and some of the trash. I’m not 100% sold on this method of cleaning up the beach considering the fact that it just pushes a lot of the trash into the remaining sand, making it sort of like buried treasure. Better than nothing, I guess. It does nothing to stop more stuff from washing up though.
I mentioned it briefly in one of my previous beach related posts but I recently started following a bunch of other folks who really love the beach, and all things beach related. Seriously you have to check out plastic monster! I wish they posted more. This fills up my explore feed with even more of these beach lovin’ people. I’m normally a little creeped out by how “smart” the internet it, how it shows me what it thinks I want to see, but I’ve really enjoyed being exposed to more beach combers and their finds.
Something I kept seeing was the hashtag “2minutebeachclean“. I was super excited to find so many other people who helped pick up their beaches. It was also reassuring to see that my beach isn’t the only one with these issues, that it’s a global problem! I mean, obviously it’s not a good thing that it’s a global problem but when I share these posts and everyone comments “MY beach isn’t that dirty! Lake Erie must be gross!” you start to think “Oh no! What if it is only my beach!?”
After browsing instagram for a little bit I felt inspired to do my own two minute beach clean. The photos below show everything green I picked up in a short stroll from one side of the beach to the other. It’s a fairly quick walk. I just used google maps to measure it, 530ft wide. I was planning on writing “this was obviously longer than a two minute beach clean” but I guess technically it could have been since it’s such a short distance. It definitely didn’t take long to pick it up. As with every one of my found on the beach posts, I spent more time organizing it all for photos than I did picking it up.
According to the 2 Minute Beach Clean website, June 11th is first annual beach clean up day. Even if you don’t live near a beach, take a few minutes out of your day pick up some litter on your daily walk, from the parking lot, from the ditch, etc. Every little piece counts!
xoxo