The Battle for a Cleaner Beach Environment

The Battle for a Cleaner Beach Environment

Participating in Heal the Bay’s beach clean up at Dockweiler beach helped me realize that beach pollution is an issue that concerns most of the beaches in California. At the beach, there was a decent amount of trash that could be found lying anywhere in the area. As I was walking around, I found a variety of trash such as: bottle caps, wrappers, napkins, plastic bags, plastic/styrofoam cups and a whole lot of other miscellaneous items that were left behind. Items like these that are left behind are hazardous to the environment and the animals that live in and wander around the beach areas. Plastic is not a biodegradable product because it does not naturally decompose like other materials and is of no use to the environment unless it is recycled.

The plastic waste that gets left behind in places like the beach tend to get mistaken as a food source for animals that are living and wandering around the area. For example, certain marine and bird species consume plastic waste like bottles, caps, or pieces of plastic bags, thinking it is some sort of food source when in reality, it is not. This reduces their lifespan and they eventually die because plastic can not be properly digested by any organism. So, for my art project, I decided to make a picture with a frame using the trash I found. The frame is made out of some of the items that are polluting the beach and dangerous to the species that live around the area. Inside the frame is a picture representing the future beaches in California, cleaner and more environmentally friendly. This can be possible by participating in beach clean ups, disposing trash properly, recycling. So then one day the picture inside the frame can become a reality.