I don't know if it's just me, but instead of pickup up shells on the beach, I pick up trash. I just love it and you still get to admire the pretty shells along the way. Other bonuses are getting some sun, fresh air and exercise - all which does wonders for the soul and for my stress levels. By filling a bag with plastic, glass pieces and an assortment of other trash that was not disposed of correctly, gives me a sense of accomplishment and a rush of Dopamine which is one of your happy hormones. This is my feel good hormones and I love to up these jolly little hormones over the weekends.
I feel like in today's Covid 19 craziness we forget about all the other issues that humankind and the planet is faced with.. Plastic pollution - especially in the ocean is a serious issue and I know my one bag of trash every now and again isn't going to save the world but I hope to at least save something.. hopefully one less bird or fish will get affected by a rouge piece of plastic.
It's actually kinda fun.. I like to make a game of it.. try to see how much j can collect in the least amount of time and like with my last beach visit I actually sat on one place and just picked up little bits of plastic around me... it wasn't as much exercise as I normally get by walking up and down the coast line and getting in my steps (and squats), but it really gave me a scare. I don't know if you've heard of nurdles but nurdles are little round plastic balls that they use to make plastic products (they melt it down and mold it from there). A few months or gosh, it could even be years ago.. the time goes so quickly.. a ship carrying tons of these nurdles tipped and millions of these little nurdles landed in the ocean. To this day they are still washing up on shore and that's how I spent my Sunday afternoon - picking up nurdles on one of Stilbaai's beautiful beaches.
I would like to encourage as much people as possible to follow my example and go to the beach every now and then and pick up a few pieces of plastic.. even if it's just one or two. Get the kids involved and see how much they can collect in an afternoon.