The beach clean up volunteer

 I participated in the beach cleanup this weekend.

This activity was sponsored by Marinepia Nihonkai, and many volunteers participated. The area that we cleaned this time is the west side of Sekiya Beach.

Before we cleaned, there was a lecture about marine debris. 

In recent years, marine debris (especially plastic debris) has become a serious problem. There are cases that sea creatures die because of eating plastic garbage which washed up in the sea. It seems that a large amount of plastic garbage actually came out from the stomach of the dead creature.

When I first came to this place, I thought there wouldn't be much trash. 

                        

But as I got closer to the beach, I realized that was a mistake. Although there was certainly little large trash which was clearly visible, there was a large amount of small trash which buried in the beach and microplastics. Microplastics are waste smaller than 5mm. 

No matter how small it gets, plastic is still plastic and can be harmful if it accumulates in the body.

In less than an hour, we collected so much trash that it can't even fit in this photo.

However, even after collecting so much, there was still a lot of trash left. In particular, microplastics were difficult to collect because they were too small. It's relatively easy to remove using a fine-mesh net, but the time when we spent this activity wasn't enough to collect everything.

I felt like time passed too quickly, because I was concentrating. Honestly, I wish I had more time. I want to participate again if I have a chance.