rharril
Registered: December 2010
City/Town/Province: Carson
Posts: 1
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My friends and I wanted to help the environment by participating in a beach cleanup for our AP Environmental Science class. We took time on a Saturday morning to go down to Redondo Beach and clean up the trash to preserve wildlife and make the beach a cleaner, more enjoyable place to be. About 20 people attended the beach cleanup, and we all put in about 3 hours to beautify the beach. We felt so proud of ourselves afterwards because we knew that our small effort made a big difference to the animals and to the environment.
Beach cleanup is very important to the environment. So much trash is left on the beach that could very easily be placed in the designated trash cans and recycling bins, but people are often too lazy to place their unwanted trash in these designated areas. The most common found pieces of trash at the beach were pieces of Styrofoam and cigarette butts. In addition to these, we found pieces of plastic, gum wrappers, bottle caps, pieces of aluminum cans, and even unwanted sandals. What people do not realize is that eventually with the tides coming in and shifting the sand, these items will get drawn into the ocean and become hazardous particles to sea creatures and birds. Because of the food chain, if a small fish were to eat a piece of plastic, then the fish that eats that fish would consume plastic also, and the bird that consumes the bigger fish would consume plastic – the cycle would repeat itself and many animals could get sick and die. These animals and sea creatures are necessary to a healthy functioning environment and we need to make every effort to preserve these animals.
My friends and I learned that every little effort counts. Just by picking up plastic, Styrofoam, glass, and cigarette butts off the beach, we saved a lot of animals’ lives. We felt good about ourselves! This experience made us all want to exert a bigger effort to helping preserve the environment. It inspired us! We put more effort into not only the AP Environmental Science class after school activities, such as cleaning up the garden or recycling, but also in our communities, encouraging everyone to recycle and place their discards at the beach in the correct trash can or recycling bin.
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