Only Trash Litters - Keeping Our Beaches Clean
For my biology honors project I have decided to do a project at a place very close to my heart, the beach. It is where I grew up and I hate to see other beach goers carelessness effect the beauty of it. During my project I will do a series of beach cleanups in which I will record the data of how much trash I collect (along with pictures) over a couple weeks. I will then create a flyer detailing the dangers of beach pollution and the harmful effects it can have on the water and marine animals. After placing this flyer in places that are frequently visited as well as attaching plastic bags for people to use to keep their trash contained, I will then do another series of beach cleanups to see if my action had any positive (or negative) results.
Initial Clean UpsFor the past couple of weeks I have done about 8 cleanups with Ocean Beach Sunset Cleanup Crew to do a series of beach cleanups. I go up and down the beach for at least an hour searching for trash. The most common things I've found so far are trash bags, cigarette butts, bottle caps, and food/chips wrappers and bags. All of these things are extremely harmful not only the environment but also many marine animals. For example the most widely known one, sea turtles. If a sea turtle sees a plastic bag floating in the water it will think that it is a jellyfish. Since jellyfish are one of the sea turtles main food sources, it will eat the plastic bag but will not digest it, which will eventually cause the sea turtle to starve to death. Things like this are not what most people think of as they enjoy their time on the beach. I saw many trash cans available on the beach that were easy to access, and yet the sand was still full of litter. During my cleanups I found that there was a difference in how much trash I found and what kind of trash I found depending on the day. On average weekend cleanups produced more trash than weekday cleanups and weekday cleanups produced less food related trash than cleanups on the weekend. I think that this was because of the difference in the amount of people who visit the beach during the varying times of the week. Throughout all of my cleanups I collected an average of 20 lbs of trash This number seems outrageous to me. But that is what I am hoping to change. After I create my flyer I am hoping that it will invoke some sort, even if it is small, of change in the trash that I find on the beach.
Flyer CreationTo start this flyer I first did some research. I wanted to see how much ocean pollution was affecting the world and those who lived on it. I also wanted to see exactly how much pollution there was in our oceans. I started off on the surfrider website, hoping it would give me the information I wanted. Unfortunately it didn't, which meant I had to look elsewhere. I found http://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-1/pollution/litter/
which provided me with lots of information and is a good link to use if you yourself are wondering about ocean pollution. I also came across https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-pollution which was more about pollution in general but helpful nonetheless. I decided to look for a couple pictures showing the effects of trash on sea animals and also include a chart that detailed how long it would take before some of the most commonly found litter would decompose. I used colors that reminded me of the ocean such as blue and seafoam and then I was finished. Click on the dash below to see the final product! _ <----click here! I plan on finding places near the beach where it will be seen and easily accessible in order for people to take the bags to put their trash in. I have high hopes for this but I also know that this could possibly result in more litter caused by my flyers and by the plastic bags. |
Experimental Clean Ups (after flyers) and ResultsI printed just 3 flyers and placed them in different spots near the beach with varying amounts of small plastic trash bags attached. (To see this, go to More Pictures page)
I did four more beach cleanups after putting up my flyers to see if they made any difference in the amount of trash I found. My first cleanup was on a Sunday and I found much less trash than I had on my previous Sunday cleanups, but during the three other cleanups following that, I collected pretty much the same data. My weekday cleanup still produced less trash than my weekend one and the I continued to collect more food trash on the weekend than during the week. After all of this I went back to the spots where I had placed my flyers and was happily surprised to find that all the bags had been taken. But, because of the lack of change in the amount of trash collected, I do not think that all the bags were used solely for trash. They could have been used for dog poop, taken to be used at home in trash cans or even just been blown away in the wind. At the conclusion of my project I did not receive the results I had hoped for. There was little to no change in the amount of trash that I collected in my cleanups after putting my flyers up.
If I were to do this project again there would definitely be some things that I would change. For example I would print out a stack of flyers and hand them out individually to beach goers as they entered the beach. Not only would this provide a higher chance of them actually reading it and remembering to clean up their trash, but would also create a more personal aspect to this portion of the project and allowed for questions to be asked if needed. I would also create more of an outline for myself for the days that I would do cleanups. Community events and gatherings may have altered the data and not provided the exactness that I could have had. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed this project as this topic is something very close to my heart. It was disheartening to see how much trash I found on my very own beach and I really hoped that I would be able to help. Now I realize that it'll take someone or something much bigger than just myself, but I do not regret my attempt. Visual AspectTo wrap up my project and create something that I will be able to show at exhibition, I am taking some of the trash that I collected during my cleanups and using it to create a sea turtle. I am going to take a large plastic trash bag and fill it with assorted pieces of trash. I will section of the corners of the plastic bag using rubber bands to create the fins of the sea turtle and the head will be made of the end of a green soda bottle sticking out of the open portion of the bag.
Though this turtle was not hard to create, I still believe the message is strong. All of the trash in this plastic bag are things that had been left on the beach, things that could end up in any poor animals stomach or around its neck, trapping it somewhere or starving it. More awareness needs to be raised about this issue and how serious it is. Hopefully soon we can put an end to it.
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