Plastic shores: a photo essay

feature

May 5

I was recently walking down the beach with my dad, keeping an eye out for bits of glowing green, white, blue, or brown beneath my feet. Collecting beach glass has been one of my favorite beach activities since I was a little kid. However, as my dad and I sauntered along the shoreline, the pieces of green and blue that caught my attention disappointed me. Scattered between smooth rocks and waterlogged sticks, hundreds of pieces of plastic littered the sand. While this is disheartening, it provides an incentive for a new beach activity, one that is more appropriate to do now more than ever—beach cleanups. With Stay Home, Stay Safe orders peeling back, and the temperature rising, there is no time like now to spend an afternoon on the beach (following social distancing measures), picking up the trash that threatens to harm our environment every day.

As we approach beach season, it’s our obligation as St. Joseph citizens to keep our beaches as healthy and clean as possible. There’s no need to wait for an organization to schedule a date and time; beach cleanups take nothing more than at least one person and a trash bag (gloves are also recommended—some of the trash you’ll find is funky). Grab a couple friends, be mindful of the distance between you all, and give back to the beaches that give you so much.