Opening Statement:
Clean Beaches Week, is an entire week to celebrate our beautiful beaches and ensure they stay clean, safe, and beautiful for generations to come. This awareness and collective initiative, combines the spirit of Earth Day with the fun of Independence Day and adds to the fun for an entire week. July 4th is the most popular beach day of the entire year, but it also results in the most litter on our shores. Clean Beaches Week is a way to educate beach-goers on proper beach behavior before the big day and will hopefully continue for the entire summer season.
History Of Clean Beaches Week
· Since 2003, the week has drawn enormous public support with over 150 coastal governors, mayors, and county commissions having now issued proclamations in support of the week. But this isn’t by any means a new subject.
· Humans have been harming the ocean’s ecosystem for hundreds of years with plastics, toxic waste, oil spills, and much more. Land-based waste products end up in seas, oceans, and beaches. Ocean trash affects the health of wildlife, people, and local economies. The trash in the water and on the shore can be ingested by wildlife, or entangle animals with lethal consequences. Plastic also attracts and concentrates other pollutants from surrounding seawater, posing a contamination risk to those species that then eat it. Scientists are studying the impacts of that contamination on fish and shellfish as well as the possible impact it may have on human health.
· Plastic has been found in 59% of seabirds such as albatross and pelicans, in 100% of sea turtle species, and more than 25% of fish sampled from seafood markets around the world.
· Beginning in the mid-1970s, the Arcata Recycling Center, under the leadership of Wes Chesbro (who has since served a long career in the California State Legislature), began running beach cleanups in search of recyclable material. Since then, hundreds of other communities have followed in their footsteps with efforts like Clean Beaches Week to make up for the danger littering has brought to our planet.
Questions and Facts on Our Beaches
· Why is it important to clean our beaches?
Keeping beaches clean is important because we need to reduce the volume of trash and consequently pollution that is going into our oceans. By better protecting the oceans, we are better protecting the huge array of wildlife than can be found within them.
· Which Ocean Is the Dirtiest?
The North Pacific Ocean is said to be the most polluted ocean in the world, with pollution particles estimated to measure around 2 trillion.
· Do Beach Clean-Ups Make a Difference?
While Beach cleanups do not free the ocean of plastic and trash, they do increase awareness about pollution and educate individuals through action. Overall, beach cleanups are a worthy cause to bring people together to focus on the environment and learn ways to protect it.
Clean Beaches Week Activities
· Go To the Beach!
Each year 180 million Americans make 2 billion trips to the beach! Celebrate Clean Beaches Week by heading to a beach near you. Consider making a further positive impact by traveling via public transport or carpooling to reduce your carbon emissions
· Clean-Up A Beach
If you go to the beach for fun, always make sure you "leave no trace," taking everything you brought to the beach back with you. You can even go a step further by participating in a beach clean-up to collect trash that others have left behind.
· Watch and Learn
· The Earth has over 372,000 miles of coastline, and each mile is special in its own way. Learn more about the beaches of the world by watching a documentary like Mission Blue, The Blue Planet, or A Plastic Ocean.
5 Facts You Should Know About Pollution
1. Plastic Overload
Eight million metric tons: That's how much plastic we dump into the oceans each year.
2. 5 Garbage Patches
There’s so much junk at sea, the debris has formed five giant garbage patches around the world, the largest being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, with an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of trash covering an area twice the size of Texas.
3. Worse Over Time
When plastic eventually degrades (which takes 400 years for most plastics), the process releases chemicals that further contaminates the sea.
4. Our Past Mistake for Our Future
By 2050, ocean plastic is expected to outweigh all the ocean’s fish.
5. Dead Zones
In 2017, oceanographers detected a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico nearly the size of New Jersey, the largest dead zone ever measured.
Why We Love Clean Beaches Week
· Beaches Are for Everybody
Beaches are a public space open to everyone, a place where all people can come together to enjoy the sand, the sun, and of course, the cool water!
· The Beach Was Our Original A/C
Today if it's too hot out, many people can enjoy the luxury of staying indoors in the air conditioning. But for generations, and even now, for people without air conditioning, the beach, where the cool water and sea breeze keeps the air a few degrees cooler than inland, is one of the only places to get relief from the heat!
· Gateways To the Ocean
8 million metric tons of plastic make their way into the world's oceans each year, and the beach is the ocean's front door! By caring for the beach and keeping it clean, we also care for our oceans, which make up 70% of the planet and are home to over 1 million known species (and maybe up to 9 million unknown ones).
Closing Statement and Recap:
It all started back in 1840 when the observation of beaches changed from an unsafe place of danger to a sought-after fun escape for individuals and families. It was in 1970 when the first beach cleanups started nationally. Both The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in 2007, passed resolutions enacting Clean Beaches Week by unanimous consent. California was one of the first states to ban plastic bags in 2016. While conducting my research I learned that the biggest clean-up in the world was in Mumbai India in 2020. For over the past 120 Sundays, volunteers have labored in the sludge to remove 12,000 tons of plastic from Versova Beach. This specific initiative is still going strong. All of us worldwide should do our share to help clean up our beaches and oceans. So that next time you go to the beach, do a little extra for those who do not clean up after themselves. As a nation we should all be ashamed of what our generations before us did. So, let’s all do better moving forward!
Source of Information: Various Google Searches and Printed Publications
Until Next Week, Stay Safe and Well!
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