Earlier this week Kushwear orchestrated its first Beach Cleanup day at Lido Beach on Long Island NY.
Although KUSH stands for Keeping Us Sustainably Healthy, there is no US that can be healthy without the earth being healthy too. In honor of SDG 14, Life Below Water, Kushwear teamed up with Moverz to put this day together.
The Moverz are a non-profit organization that helps people pursue their creative passions, and they certainly showed up on this day as most of the volunteers were from their community. Over twenty people gathered to clear nearly 300 pounds of garbage and debris from this beautiful Long Island beach.
Though from a distance you may not think of this beach as being a particularly “dirty” one, once you get a closer look the contrary begins to become evident. The debris mostly consisted of bottle caps, cans, plastic bottles, fishing line, discarded wood and surgeons masks. “Though it’s disheartening to see so much garbage on the beach, it feels good to clean it up” said Moverz co-founder Matt Ferrara. “This day has been somewhat of an eye opener for us and we are going to commit to doing these beach cleanups on a monthly basis.” “There’s a lot more work to do” he went on to say.
One of the most unforgettable moments of the day came after everyone had cleared as much trash as they could from the beach. All it took was one person to say “wow I haven’t stretched in a while” and just like that, an impromptu yoga class unexpectedly broke out amongst the volunteers. Though it was not planned it attracted nearby beach goers and allowed everyone a chance to find their zen after the taxing day. Following beach yoga the volunteers all hopped in the ocean for a celebratory swim and headed home after a hard days work. Max Lerner of the NYC Park Department was among the volunteers lending a hand for mother earth this day, “it’s so great to see everyone coming together for a cause greater than themselves, and truly making a difference” he said.
According to National Geographic there are over 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean. Though this number seems unfathomable, if we all do our part it IS possible to reverse this ridiculous hole we’ve gotten ourselves into.
What can you do to help reduce the amount of garbage in the ocean? STOP USING PLASTIC! Seriously, just avoid plastic every opportunity that you can. The Plastic Disclosure Project, a project run by Ocean Recovery Alliance, estimates that 33 percent of plastic manufactured worldwide is used once, then discarded. To compound matters, 85 percent of the world’s plastic is not recycled. Do yourself, and the earth, a huge favor and just ditch plastic altogether, there are so many higher quality, eco-friendly materials out there. Anything made with plastic can be made better without it.
If you would like to join Kushwear and the Moverz on their next beach clean up, get in touch through info@moverz.org
Sources:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/1/150109-oceans-plastic-sea-trash-science-ma rine-debris/
