Preserving and Cleaning Up Our Beaches

I had a very interesting experience back in November 2019 during my trip to Bali. We see devastating and terrifying pictures of beaches and oceans covered in plastic, and animals entangled in it. We are saddened or angry, say we should do something about it. But the sad truth, within 5 minutes the thought passes and we have forgotten all about it. Our attention is pulled elsewhere. 

We preach about the need to stop plastic waste and that we must clean up our beaches. However do we do anything about it? 

This is a photo of White Sand Beach, in Badang Bai, east of Bali. One of my favourite spots for swimming. However some days it’s spotless and other days the whole shoreline is a carpet of plastic trash and debris. On this occasion, thankfully the beach was relatively clean. However there was a rice sack, a plastic bag and a plastic bottle floating near the shoreline and before going in to fish these out, I wanted to see people’s reaction to the trash. Tourists just swam past the trash and some even threw it further away. 

The point of the story is not to show myself as a green hero or better than everyone else. Far from that. My point is that if we all take responsibility, wherever we are in the world, and take action on the things we complain about, we could actually have a better impact. 

We go on holiday and expect pristine beaches. However when we see trash we don’t pick it up. If it’s not on our own property it’s not our concern. Would you leave that trash if it was in your backyard. Likely not. 

This is our planet, and everywhere we go we should treat it as our home. 

Plastic and trash is a global responsibility and it's time to each do our part.