JUNE 5TH IS EARTH DAY.
IT IS A DAY WHEN WE SHOULD REMEMBER JUST HOW PRECIOUS OUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT IS AND HOW WE SHOULD ALL STRIVE TO PRESERVE IT.
Our natural environment is not just something outside of us. We act as if we were separate from it and had the unquestioned right to do with it as we please. Therein lies the problem. We are part of it and everything we do do to the Earth, we do to ourselves. We are just part of the tapestry of life.
The Covid-19 Pandemic forced me to suspend my beach plogging in February 2021, for fear of infection. When cleanning up the mess of plastic and garbage people leave along the water's edge and shoreline, I get exposed to the mucous, saliva and fluids that people leave in their plastic bottles, cups and food wrappings on the sands. They also leave dirty nappies, sanitary towels and even condoms on the sand. The sand is packed cheek by jowl with people on the weekends and so avoiding closely packed crowds is an impossibility and thus presents a definite infection risk in the pandemic.
I feel an urgent need to return to my beach plogging because I fear that people have learned little about the need to preserve the beach and the marine environment. I fear that they have not changed their habits and continue with their selfish littering of the beach.
I am trying to build up the courage to return to my beach plogging because our environment sorely needs people to defend it. Even the little that I can do on my own helps. I reckon that since I started beach plogging in Ipanema in 2010, I must have removed over a ton of plastic trash, bottles and garbage from along the shoreline.
The following is a video made by Nicolas Mandri-Perrott, when he interviewed me about my beach plogging. His email: nmandri@gmail.com. His site: www.3c-films.com. Nicolas Mandri 3C Films.
