Summer is here again and so are all the fun trips to the beach! With all the hot sticky weather we have been having in the Northeast, every week I hear of a friend who is ”heading up to the lake” or off for an ocean adventure at one of the many beaches along the Northeast coast.
Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not! But I do have one pet peeve. I even blogged about it last year….right around this time too!
Here it is – Is it really asking too much for you to pick up your trash at the end of the day?
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There is nothing worse than walking out onto the beach and having to dodge the discarded remains of someone else’s fabulous beach day!
Oh, and as yet another reminder…the sand on the beach IS NOT your personal ashtray!
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What set me off this year? First I was at a couple lakes over the 4th of July holiday. These lakes in NH are kept in fairly pristine order by the members of the community that reside around the lakes. At a private beach, every little bit of trash had been picked up and discarded as visitors left the area. How nice is that?!? No worries about where you are walking, nothing floating in the water with you, just clean lake water and a sparkling beach area. It was awesome!
My next beach adventure was not so pretty. I first visited Salisbury where I am in total amazement that anyone on their right mind would even consider walking barefoot! Not only was there trash strewn everywhere but down by the water (it was low tide when I was there) I passed at least 4 broken bottles! Really people?!? There are kids running around these beaches not to mention pets and the adults. None of us want to end our day at the emergency room because some selfish idiot couldn’t take the time to bring their trash over to the barrel and dispose of it in a responsible manner.
Onto Hampton. Hampton has it’s share of trash on the beach too but it was not quite as bad as Salisbury. While there I took the picture attached to this blog. The shot would have been absolutely beautiful…if it wasn’t for the paper cup left behind on the rocks. No more than 50 feet away there was a trash barrel. I think the sea gull in the picture was eyeing the cup too but he was probably wondering if there was any food in it!
As I took the picture of the cup, I noticed a couple walking along the beach closer to the water. They had their camera out and they, too, seemed interested in this cup. As they moved up to where I was we started to chat. I learned that they we from Albany NY and here in the Northeast seacoast area on vacation. The first thing the woman said to me was “I just don’t understand why people are so irresponsible!” She continued to note that at another beach she visited, there were police handing out tickets to people who littered the beach and also there was no smoking allowed on the beach so people didn’t have to worry about cigarette butts in their kids sand castles! I thought maybe I should find that beach! I also learned that while this woman was very upset by the trash left behind, she was not in any environmental field for a living – she just wanted a clean beach. I know, really! Is that too much to ask? She said she was an artist and she writes art blogs but was planning to blog about this too. She also noted that she would post it on the Hampton Beach Facebook page. Good for her!
This is what we need – more people paying attention and speaking up! Have you been to the beach yet? There are many lake area beaches that could use some help as well as the ocean beaches. If you do nothing else, at least, please, clean up after yourself – wherever you are. Beaches, bike trails, hiking trails and other summer recreation spots need your help. As Gandhi noted ”Be the change you wish to see in this world”. Everything we do matters, good and bad. Strive to only do the good.
