The top 10 items found at beach cleanups
Not just an ugly beach day.
More than 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the oceans annually, polluting our world’s beloved beaches. This doesn’t just make for an ugly beach day; it is more seriously contaminating our food chain and adding to climate change.
There is a lot of trash floating around in our oceans (that shouldn’t be there)-so much that a giant trash vortex is currently hounding marine life in the Pacific Ocean. If you ever wondered what types of litter are washing up on our beaches, we can offer some insights.
As the organizer of the annual International Coastal Cleanup, The Ocean Conservancy carefully monitors pollution and our oceans' state. During their global beach cleanup event, volunteers worldwide contribute data on the type of debris found. The data provides important information to scientists, environmental groups, and governments to closely study the process of waste that gets dumped into the oceans.
What type of trash is mostly found at beach cleanups?
The breakdown
Cigarettes
Don’t let its small size fool you. This tiny monster makes its way through gutters and drains into the sea. Besides the plastic in filters, the toxins in cigarettes can kill animals and birds as they mistake the butts for food and accidentally ingest them. I won’t go there, but… Another reason to stop smoking? (Yup, I totally went there).
Plastic food wrappers
Plastic film and wrappers are one of the most found litter at beach cleanups. It may keep your lunch fresh but pollutes the planet.
Plastic bottles
The next offenders are plastic beverage bottles. Did you know that around 20,000 plastic bottles are sold every second? These bottles mostly end up in landfills, on the streets, and in nature, from where wind and rain drag them to the waterways.
Bottle caps and plastic cap bands
With bottles come bottle caps, but they are in a league of their own. Besides easy to be broken down into microplastics, the caps are small enough to be swallowed whole by animals such as birds, suffocating or hurting their intestines in the process.
Plastic bags
The danger of plastic bags in the ocean is higher than ever. These ‘silent killers’ can be mistaken for jellyfish by turtles and eaten. Furthermore, they do not biodegrade and sit on the seabed for ages, where corals and ecosystems get suffocated and damaged due to lack of oxygen.
Plastic food utensils: cutlery, plates, and cups
A lot more prevalent than earlier suspected, over two million plastic utensils were found on the beaches during the International Coastal Cleanup this year. And that’s just in one day! By taking the ‘Quit the Cutlery’ pledge, you can take action yourself to spread awareness about plastic pollution.
Straws and stirrers
These two notorious products often end up in landfills, which is a bad idea. Why? Because not only are they single-use items, which is unsustainable in itself, they also weigh nothing and get easily blown into the oceans and waterways by the wind.
Takeout containers
Another horrible polluter is polystyrene, sometimes called EPS. You know, the stuff that those white food takeout containers are made of? Regular exposure to styrene can affect the nervous system of humans. The chemicals and microplastics that harm you end up in the oceans, contaminating our food and water supplies.
Lids
Coffee cup lids are a total bummer. The typical ones are made of styrofoam, which is not a good mix with hot liquids (see above). These days, you’ll also find a lot of ‘biodegradable’ lids at coffee shops. But what you don’t know is that these items are usually only biodegradable when disposed of correctly at a proper facility. If they end up in landfills or oceans, instead of decomposing or biodegrading as many claim, these lids only break up into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually becoming microplastics so small the human eye can no longer see—poisoning water, food, and ecosystems.
Marine debris
Ropes, fishing nets, fishing lines, crates, baskets. All an environmental hazard waiting to happen when it comes to fish, dolphins, whales, and turtles. According to ocean conservation organization Sea Shepherd, an estimated 30% of the decline of fish populations is a result of discarded fishing equipment.
Plastic is not fantastic
As you can see, most of the top 10 items are made of or contain plastic. According to a study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, if we do not stop using the amount of plastic we currently consume, by 2050, plastic items will outnumber fish.
So what do these insights mean for you and me? It hopefully influences the way we think about the way we consume these products in our daily lives. Reducing the amount of plastic we use will force corporate businesses to change their production processes. For example, earlier this year, mass producer Coca Cola (named the worst polluting brand for the second year running) broke ties with the Plastics Industry Association because of public pressure. If businesses do not step up their game, we have to make them.
In the two minutes, it took you to read this article, more than 60,000 pounds of plastic were dumped into our oceans.
Take action now and fight climate change by joining a beach cleanup near you and help fight climate change one piece of plastic at a time. Can’t join but do want to help? Proof of Impact proudly partnered up with ocean cleanup organizations such as #SeaTheBiggerPicture, Oceano Reddentes, and Clean C. We will soon make it possible for you to fund units of ocean trash gathered and recycled with verifiable proof points.
