If you walk your Dog on the beach clean-up the pet waste. If the pet waste goes into the ocean it will pollute the water. Did you know that 15 tons of pet waste goes into the ocean daily. Don’t flush pet litter down your toilet, it could end up in the ocean.
Keep your community streets / sewers free of trash. Trash; including plastic bottles, cans, straws and plastic bags that go down the sewer often end up in the ocean or another waterway. A plastic bottle that goes to the ocean does not go away. It actually turns into microplastics. Microplastics sometimes comes back on the beach sand. Fish often mistake microplastics for food and consume it. We in turn consume the fish. It is becoming a vicious and dangerous cycle.
Clean up your beach every time you visit. Some people are notorious for leaving litter on the beach. The litter left on the beach include, but is not limited to; sandals, towels, cigarette butts, beach toys, plastic and glass bottles, and plastic bags. If these items and others are left on the beach they will eventually be washed out to sea. People are often careless with their personal belongings. You will often see in the early hours of the morning or late in the afternoon people with metal detectors. These people are searching for coins, watches rings and other Jewelry left behind by people who have visited the beach.
Use the beach restroom to pee, not the ocean. Don’t pollute the ocean by using it as your bathroom. If you have children, teach them this expectation.
Organize a clean-up event at your beach. On Instagram you will find organizations that do clean-up events all of the on the beach. You see the average amount of participants from 1 to 12 people. Point is, you don’t have to have a lot of people to do this. You can make a difference whether it’s one person or twelve. Ideas on how you can advertise your clean-up event. Local governments have now started to employ sustainability leaders. Make it special by taking pictures and putting it on social media. This will encourage others to create their own events and protect the environment. Promote the clean-up event at your work. Employers are often looking for employees that will help drive volunteer programs that other employees can participate in.
Participate in a clean-up event at your beach. Research your local government and find out who your sustainability leader is or who supports the volunteer efforts within the government. They can help provide you resources on different volunteer events that are scheduled to occur. There are even volunteer events for scuba divers that will go into the ocean and remove trash outside of beaches.
Educate others about protecting beaches. Did you know that tiny bits of plastic left on beaches or micro-plastics that come to the beaches from the oceans can cause animals to die? Examples include; seals, turtles, and sea birds. They can mistake plastic for food and eat it. Worse, sea birds can feed it to their children. Plastic in an extreme sense can fill an animals’ stomach where the animal can no longer feed itself, and it literally starves to death.
Make sure you clean up fishing line and nets at the beach. Animals can get trapped in fishing line or nets. In some cases, they choke to death. Go to You-Tube, it will show you a ton of examples of people cutting off nets and fishing line off of trapped animals. Educate those fishing, if they try to leave lines and nets behind.
Drive an Electric Car and be energy usage conscious. The ocean acts like a sponge and absorbs carbon dioxide from cars that is polluting the air. When fossil fuels burn, it causes pollution. As the oceans absorb the greenhouse gases it causes the water to warm, and can potentially cause acid rain. Electricity usage causes greenhouse gases. The less you use, the better for our air that we breathe and our oceans.
Buy organic foods locally. Avoid the grocery store when you can for items that can be found on your local farm. Gardening without using fertilizer and pesticides prevents fertilizer run off that ends up in the waterways and results in pollution of our waterways. This is the definition of organic farming (no fertilizer or pesticides). Local farming benefits sustainable living as well. Since it’s local we are not dependent on deliveries from other states that cause diesel fuel to burn which results in carbon emissions. Also some produce and vegetables have to be maintained in a refrigerated cooler, during delivery as well as upon delivery. Refrigerated coolers for travel or stationary add greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.
