Consider it Home

By Kari Riddell
 

Volunteers Jo Hacking and Doreen Connell Keep beaches clean through the Great Nova Scotia Pick-Me-Up. Photo: Jo Hacking

It’s not fun having to avoid broken glass and cigarette butts when looking for the perfect stop to lay down your beach towel. Similarly, tripping over rope and rusted lobster traps also distracts from the ambiance during an ocean-front stroll. Yet this is the reality facing many visitors to Nova Scotia’s beaches. Why are alarming amounts of garbage ending up along our precious coasts?

Our beaches are the end-point for garbage from many different sources. Beachgoers leave plastic bags, empty water bottles, toys, sandals, and picnic leftovers. Ocean current and wind sweep other kinds of debris ashore, including fishing lines, baitboxes, and lobster traps that fall off fishing boats. Military and cruise ships, oil and gas offshore rigs, improper medical and hygiene disposal and illegal dumping activities all occasionally end up on our beaches.

Not only is shoreline debris unsightly and dangerous - it also tastes awful! Many shorebirds don’t know the difference between garbage and food, which means they are getting a belly full of poisons and indigestible items, like plastic bags, balloons, or bottle caps. Other marine creatures, such as sea turtles, can drown after getting tangled in abandoned fishing lines.

There are ways to prevent and reduce the damage. Each year, thousands of volunteers work to cleanup litter in Nova Scotia, with some groups taking a special interest in their local beaches. In 2006 and 2007, over 1300 bags of garbage were collected and recorded through Clean Nova Scotia’s Great Nova Scotia Pick-Me-UP program – an amount that represents only a fraction of the actual amount of garbage still choking our shorelines and causing harm to shorebirds and marine life.

To maintain our shorelines for future generations, we must all take responsibility for the waste that we create and learn to reduce it as much as we can. After a day at the beach, take everything home with you - even toys, apple cores, or cigarette butts, as they are not natural to the area and can harm wildlife. If you are on a boat, never throw any kind of waste overboard; it may seem to disappear, but in reality it just becomes someone else’s problem! Learn to consider the shoreline a part of your home and clean up after yourself. No one likes a messy home!

To organize your own shoreline cleanup and receive a free cleanup kit you can contact Clean Nova Scotia (www.clean.ns.ca) and take part in the Great Nova Scotia Pick-Me-Up program.

Kari Riddell is Clean Nova Scotia’s Special Events & Membership, Coordinator. She organizes the Great Nova Scotia Pick-Me-Up and Waste Reduction Week