Postcards from a (Plastic-Strewn) Beach

On An Adventure And Inspired To Act: A Letter From A Reader.
posted March 7th, 2009 on the Wend website, by Stiv (a fellow Surfrider member)

Adventure. Inspiration. Activism— yeah, that’s what we’re all about. And I love it when I hear from our readers that our message is well received. I can’t express how satisfying it is to sit at my desk at Wend HQ and get letters like this one, from a Wend reader, Paul Corn:

Thank you for Anna Cummins’ excellent piece on the North Pacific Gyre. Coincidentally, I read it on a beach while down in the Yucatan. It certainly focused my attention on the plastic trash strewn across the shoreline on Akin beach near Tulum. On my final day at the beach my kids and I picked up the trash in the immediate area, likely no more than 100 square metres. It really took us no time to pull together more than a kilo of items ranging from bottle caps to flipflops, a syringe chamber, kids toys, building materials and on and on.

We tried to think of a way to sensitize the tourists to the impact of plastics, so we built a few sculptures, a happy face, a meal setting, complete with ketchup bottle and salt shaker. As the sun began to fade on our beach day we arranged the plastics into the the word “TULUM” and took the attached shot, which we have now turned into a postcard. We thought if everyone took 30 minutes at their favourite beach to pick up the plastic turn it into a postcard (attached) and send it to local tourism officials, local government reps, hotels and others maybe we could motivate others to get out and practice greater stewardship of our oceans and adjoining beaches.

Keep up the good work WEND, good information can create positive responses which may help to change the world.

Best wishes,

Paul Corns
Saskatchewan, Canada

Thanks to Paul for making our day over here at Wend HQ!

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