O Say Can You Sea?

This American Flag is made of foam core molding, paint, trash from Dockweiler Beach and glue.
I went to Dockweiler Beach in Los Angeles to pick up trash for the Heal-The-Bay foundation and I was amazed at just how much trash there was! In my art project, you will see bottlecaps, cigarette buds, bottle lids, a stay-on-tab from a soda can, straws, construction paper, a piece of glasses, some rubber, a piece of an aluminum lawn chair, a pair of pliers, a piece of a razor, a fork, plastic and some wrappers. I did find more trash than this, but a lot of it was too gross to display. I chose these pieces to put in my project because they represent the trash we make from day-to-day.

The message of this American Flag covered in trash is: America may be the land of the free, but it is also the land of the filthy. There is so much trash on our beaches that the trash builds up and the animals die eating the trash that they mistook for food. I saw a gopher at Dockweiler Beach and first, I thought,"aww, how cute!" and then, I thought about the horrible death it would have because of how much "food" there is lying around on that beach. And this isn't the only beach where this is a problem! The problem doesn't stop with the beaches, or even the lakes. It only gets worse every day when we litter and create more garbage.

We should clean up after ourselves...always! There should be no exceptions. If we don't want to swim in our own dirt, then we have to do something about it. Whenever you're walking somewhere and you casually drop some trash for some random custodian to pick up, think about this: what if the custodian didn't pick up that piece of trash because he was too focused on all the other trash that he missed it? What if that piece of trash was left and polluted our air? What if that trash just killed a bird from the inside? There's no need to ask "what if" anymore. We know what can and probably will happen. And we can prevent it! All we have to do is hold onto our trash until we find a trash can.

I will be going to beaches and wherever I'm needed from now on to clean up the trash that we people have made and left for the environment. Will you do the same?

Is this what we want for America, "the home of the free and the brave"?
Do we want to be known for our anthem or for our excessive trash?