Forget the whales, save the beach.
As an avid beachcomber and sun lover, nothing ignites my temper more than the polluting of our oceans. I enjoy visiting the Crystal Coast of North Carolina and lived in Hawaii from 1995-1998. A tranquil day at the beach is almost always interrupted by either trash washing in with the tide, or bubba (the crusty old smoker,) that grinds his or her cigarette or cigar out in the sand then deposits it there like compost. I feel like shaking the daylights out of these idiots I mean smokers, but do not want to embarrass my wife, or make matters worse by getting arrested for assault. Cigarette butts are the most common form of litter found on the beaches worldwide. Click here to view this tragedy. To add insult to injury, trash cans are conveniently located at all public beach access areas in my home state of North Carolina. I make it a point to pick up any nearby trash surrounding my family whenever I need to use the trash receptacle. This restores the small piece of real estate my kids play on to a pristine location. The beach is a beautiful place if people take care of it.
Another sad truth is the mountains of trash deposited in our oceans by ships. Ships are allowed to dump trash approximately 50 miles out to sea. However, it is supposed to be biodegradable materials only. The honor system is in effect here.
In closing, the most common cause of litter found in our oceans or lying about scattered on the beach is from runoff. This is trash which was discarded by people and ended up in sewers that eventually dump into the ocean. This trash not only pollutes our marine sanctuaries, but can carry deadly organisms from one area of the world to another endangering marine life.
I hope if nothing else, any smokers out there that read my blog clean up their act and dispose of their butts properly.
posted by david at 8:05 PM
2 Comments:
David,
The information you provide here is excellent (albeit depressing). But do you *really* want to forget the whales? I think your title might work at a tangent to the position you take in your text. Also, and as a minor point, read for comma placement. There are a few places in which we might need a pause.
This is such a great topic!! I too have never understood why people cannot walk 10 feet to a garbage can or wait until they get home to throw out their garbage instead of throwing it out of their car window. I recently worked the Marine Corps Marathon and afterwards we all pitched in to help clean up. Not only did we clean up the area that we were working in, but we cleaned up garbage that was obviously there far longer than we were. I could not believe the things that people just threw on the ground as if it were nothing.
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