Beach Cleanup

Nature is Beautiful

Florida, Hollywood Beach circa 2010

I was a high school girl volunteering at a beach cleanup with my friend, Momo. To graduate, everyone at my school needed to do a total of forty community service hours. Beach cleanup was my go to for volunteering besides tutoring students in mathematics. I figured, not only was I fulfilling my community service requirement, but also I was giving back to the environment.

All my life I've grown up in South Florida until graduate school. I was used to most of the beaches being crowded with people and litter. I thought most beaches were like this until I went to Saint Augustine beach in Northern Florida. The beach there was pristine, the sand was soft, it was a dream come true (and is actually the cover for this essay). Hollywood Beach is one of the popular South Florida beaches, so, of course it was riddled with trash. It was a Saturday morning, early for me since I like to sleep in until 2 pm on weekends. The beach wasn't crowded yet and the weather was nice. We arrive at the beach and they hand everyone a big black trash bag. Most of the group are other middle and high schoolers. The people in charge decided to make it a competition, and would reward the person who collected the most trash. I know this was to encourage people to do their best but in a way it detracted from thoroughly cleaning up the beach.

They lead everyone around the beach slowly, as everyone started to pick up cans, paper, styrofoam, etc. I noticed that as they kept moving forward, Momo and I were falling behind. The people in the front of the group were only going after big pieces of trash like newspapers and 2 liter bottles, whereas Momo and I were taking our time wading through the sand for the smaller, more inconspicuous pieces like little pieces of paper and plastic.

At one point, I remember us getting reprimanded for not picking up enough trash because our bags looked so empty and light compared to the others. They thought we were slacking off. We probably picked up more pieces of trash than anyone else there, but it was because the pieces were so small that no one noticed. I remember being upset about it because, yes they were cleaning the beach...but they weren't really. It's like picking up the clothes and papers from the floor of your bedroom but not bothering to sweep the dust and dirt.

I'm happy, at least, that I was able to contribute something to make this beach look the way nature intended it to, at least for a little while. We, as a people, need to learn to take better care of our environment, so that turtles (like the one pictured above, taken at the beach in Plum Tree Island National Refuge in Hampton, VA) and other species can survive without impingement or endangerment. Live and let live.