Plastic Planet

Many people have watched Blue Planet and seen the problems of plastic pollution in the seas.

Plastic that can last for 1000 years.
Plastic that kills marine life.
Plastic that enters the food chain.
Plastic that we, too, consume.

People, I cannot tell you how much I have fretted and stressed over the state of the planet for decades. Really, decades. At least forty decades. And of course I have supported environmental organisations - Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth, and I have sponsored tigers, polar bears, snow leopards, orangutans, and paid to protect acres of rainforests in Africa and South America.

And I still pay a monthly donation to The Rainforest Alliance

And all of that is good.
   
But sometimes a person needs to do something practical, personally, because sometimes that is what is really required.

Today was one such day.

I woke to beautiful blue skies and sunshine reflecting off the snow that still covers my garden and roof and the tops of the cars, and I decided it had been too many days since I had been to Tregastel, having spent a lot of time walking the beach at Les Rosaires, and so, Tregastel it was to be.

I'd forgotten how special that place is...

 

It was cold, very cold, too cold, A strong wind was blowing from the north. I sat on a pink granite bench to sip my coffee and had to wrap a blanket round my legs and sit on my gloves to keep me warm. Bit it was bright and sunny and the tide was in and the water looked lovely and I was content.

We'll walk on the sand, I decided, screwing the top on my flask and calling Tashi, too cold to swim with that stiff breeze but a walk will warm us up.

We descended onto the sand and then I noticed it: plastic, everywhere I looked, strips of blue plastic string tangled in the seaweed, bits of plastic fishing nets mimicking that seaweed, plastic cups lying on the sand like empty crab shells, plastic bottle tops sticking out of the sand like unnatural seashells,  even a large, algae-covered plastic oil container like some monster from the deep.

Plastic, plastic everywhere.

I returned to the car to fetch my shopping bag.
The one I had brought along for the pine cones that I collect for fire-lighting. They are excellent natural fire lighters and not toxic like the paraffin-base ones.

And Tashi and I set off to walk the length of the beach and back again and in an hour I had cleared it of every single piece of plastic, and some wire mesh too...

I had half-filled my shopping bag with small pieces of plastric,  it would have overflowed had I crammed all of the rubbish into it.

My favourite beach was now clean and tidy once more and all of that plastic and wire that I put into the bin by the car would never again pollute the sea.

We set off to collect those pine cones, round to the next beach, admiring the views which are really very lovely, especially when the tide is high...

and we set off walking on the beach...

I like this one because there are interesting little channels and grooves in the sand and when the tide is in it makes pretty patterns and soothing sounds as it laps against the sand.

I sometimes sit and close my eyes and listen to it and it is better than any man-made meditation music you could ever buy.

And then we set off walking and, horror!

More rubbish.
Much more rubbish.
Much, much more rubbish.

At first I was disheartened.
So much rubbish and only one small woman and her dog to collect it.
Then I remembered the story of the beach covered with dying starfish and how it doesn't matter if you can't save every starfish, it matters that you care enough to save at least one.

So I set to cleaning that beach too and more than filled my shopping bag with rubbish - mostly plastic but also that boot, lots of wire mesh in rolls, glass bottles and even a light bulb!

And I lugged my load of rubbish back to the bin that was way back at the start of the beach and pushed as much in as I could manage, and left the rest safely stacked next to it.

It took me another whole hour to clean that beach and I was exhausted by the time I'd finished.
Exhausted but content.

I know it was a mere drop in the ocean.

Our seas are heavily polluted with plastic and other rubbish, what I did was nothing but, I cleaned two beautiful beaches and I stopped all of that plastic from returning to the sea during the next high tide and maybe, just maybe, my doing that saved some marine creature from either consuming it or from getting tangled in it and drowning.

Maybe I saved a starfish.

And that thought made my wrinkly old eyes twinkle!

You know, if we all did just a little bit every day, whether by turning off those electrical currents, by reducing our fossil fuel consumption, by sending a dollar a day to an eco charity, by picking up plastic on the beach, we could heal this beautiful planet together.

N'est-ce pas?