Beach, please: Easy ways to help the beach this summer
By: Sneha Konda
Tags: World Oceans Day, Oceans, Pollution, Environment, Conservation

I remember my first time at the beach after my move to Seattle — A glorious sunny day, filled with melting ice cream cones, beach blankets and the best of companies. After lounging on the warm sand for hours, I made my way to the water, and stuck my feet in it, as any normal person would at the beach. I will never forget the chill that crept up my legs like a persistent, attention-seeking vine. The water was freezing.

“It’s Puget Sound. The water is usually icy cold,” another human (definitely not of this world, I’d say), thoroughly enjoying the freeze, remarked.

Since that fateful day, I plotted my return to a tropical beach with warm waters. This year, as a birthday treat, I was fortunate to stand on several shores in Tulum, Mexico, letting the warm waters thaw my cold feet.

This should have been enough. But it sadly, wasn’t.

Stylish Instagrammers in their wide-brimmed, what I could only assume were $400 Eugenia Kim straw hats sat on the beaches in perfectly Pinterest-able clothes and impeccable makeup that didn’t melt. After their envious photo shoots, they grabbed their things, but left behind their plastic mess on the not-pristine-anymore sands.

I gaped at them, jaw gravitating, for actions I could only describe as far from beautiful. This, only a few meters away from turtle nesting grounds, that will, in a couple of months see millions of baby turtles hatch, and eventually get caught up in the plastic, and possibly die because they can’t make it into the ocean.

With the Internet screaming reports like how there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean, and 414 million pieces of plastic were found on remote island group in Indian Ocean where only 600 people live, it’s perhaps safe to scrunch up my nose and call this behavior outrageous and unacceptable. But, as it turns out, we could all, unwittingly be leaving things like cigarettes, plastic cutlery, wrappers, straws, beverage cans and plastic bags behind. At least, that’s what volunteers for Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup noted, after picking up 11 million items of trash one year. Simply put, this chokes up the oceans, alters eco systems, destroys coral reefs and kills off species that you’ll only read about it in books and have David Attenborough guilt-trip you about.

Since beach time is an important summer tradition for most of us, there’s no time like now to be a “weirdo” that gives two shits about the environment. (Trust me, it’s going to start becoming cool to do so, any day now. Thanks, Greta Thunberg.) Here are some notes from a list I’ve actively been trying to embrace:

🐟 Be a #litterati, pick up 3 pieces of trash:

This is based on the premise that this world is changed by your example, not just your opinion. I first heard about this activity on a Major Marine Tours whale watching cruise in the Kenai Fjords in Alaska. The suggestion? “Pick up 3 pieces of trash from a beach/waterway before you leave.” I then saw popular fashion editor Eva Chen partake in this activity on Instagram, and make her kids follow along.

I tried it too. And as “weird” as it sounds, I can’t tell you just how fulfilling it is to know that, THAT piece of plastic you just picked up didn’t kill something. There’s also a major Australian campaign called Take 3 for the Sea that does the same. Simple? Yes. Fulfilling? Definitely!