Doing Good As A Team: We Went Beach Cleaning!
Team bonding for an important initiative
Last weekend we went beach cleaning! On Saturday 18 May, our team dedicated our day to making a beach beautiful again. Read on to find out what we we did and why.
Brightening up the beach
We arrived to Meco Beach, a spot south of Lisbon along the west coast of Portugal, around 11am. The landscape was simply beautiful — but the day’s chilly winds meant that we had it almost to ourselves.
After getting suited up with our gloves and trash bags, we set off in groups to roam around the beach. We aimed to cover every spot of sand we could see. It was a true team effort: some of us wandered along the water while others trekked all the way up the nestly dunes.
A lot of the waste we found was trapped in amongst the plants and rocks further away from the water. Plastic cups, old food wrappers and polystyrene littered the landscape, a lot of it standing out against the nature for its artificially bright colours. Some of us even found small rusty metal poles could have been dangerous to any person or animal who came across it.
Halfway through the afternoon we stopped for a break at Bar do Peixe, a restaurant on the Meco beach that offers a free cocktail to anyone who collects a kilo of trash. This is certainly one way of getting people to look after the beach!
Later on, we climbed one of the beautiful sand dunes for a stunning view of the shoreline.
We ended the day with a brilliant team dinner at a nearby restaurant — a great chance to chat and enjoy some authentic Portuguese food.
Why beach cleaning?
Plastic is threatening sea life
Plastic pollution is killing the life in our seas. Everything that washes up on our shores is sad evidence of what’s contaminating our oceans, with more being added to them every single day. We’ve all seen the heart-wrenching images of turtles, birds and other wildlife trapped by manmade waste. One deep sea diver only recently delved down to Mariana Trench, one of the deepest-explored parts of the ocean yet, and found a plastic bag.
If we could find this trash on the surface of the sand in one day, how much is buried underneath from years of littering?
Having to consciously look for litter on the beach really opened our eyes to the fact that plastic is everywhere, posing a threat to nature in many ways. Most astonishing was the sheer amount we found buried in the sand. Like the tip of an iceberg, we would grab at a small scrap of trash and a whole chunk would come out with it, hidden underneath. If it is that easy for plastic to be concealed by the sand, it’s just as easy for any small creature to get caught in it.
It makes the beach more pleasant for everyone
Our team of 17 collected over 25 bags worth of trash in just a few hours. That’s a lot of litter! From plastic cups, bottles and bags to sharp metal rods, there were hundreds of items that had washed up on the shore or were abandoned by beachgoers.
This definitely taught us a lesson in considering the environment: it may seem like nothing to leave one small cup or plastic bag on the ground, but if one hundred people think the same way the impact is unfortunately huge. When you go to the beach, making sure you take care of all the packaging you bring already makes a positive difference to the environment.
Team bonding for an important initiative
Although it was a voluntary activity, beach cleaning had a lot in common with how we work together in the office. Collaboration is one of our core company values and so spending a Saturday working towards a meaningful goal together was a good exercise in teamwork.
This is something that people of all ages can do to help the environment. Yet unfortunately it makes you think: if we could find this trash on the surface of the sand in one day, how much is buried underneath from years of littering? Our team of volunteers was proud to make even a small contribution to saving our seas; this was our first time doing it, but it won’t be the last!
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