This blog post takes its title from a song by The Smiths. I want to address that question together with addressing another one – why? Three letters, the sum of which is probably one of the most important words in the English language. A question that provokes, challenges or one that can drive you demented – particularly when repeatedly asked by three-year olds in response to each answer you give to the previous “why?”
So, why did over 80 volunteers turn up each day at beach cleans organised by Barefoot Wine and Surfers Against Sewage on two consecutive days in Scotland the other weekend? Picking up litter from a beach is hardly glamorous and could be likened to shovelling snow in a blizzard. What difference does it make? Why? What’s the point? Surely it’s just a drop in the ocean?
Perhaps the latter phrase is actually a useful one. In recent weeks a news report surfaced with some shocking research findings. Some of the deepest parts of the ocean bed were being mapped for the first time ever by mankind. What the scientists discovered was that our rubbish had got there before we had. The impact of discarded fishing lines and plastic tides is huge upon marine wildlife. As eco-systems are altered, so is the food chain and some of these lead to mutations which can also find their way into our own human food chain. It’s less about our clean-up efforts being a drop in the ocean and more about what we drop in the ocean in the first place.
I also like to think that the attendance at the beach cleans wasn’t just down to the fact that TV presenter, Kate Humble, made it along to Dunbar on a sunny Friday afternoon…although, I’m sure that that helped!
As a bit of a beach clean veteran, the thing that I’ve come to understand is that a beach can often look fairly clean upon first inspection. Dispatch a host of volunteers for an hour or two though and you’ll be amazed by the variety and volume of rubbish that is returned. On each of the latest Scottish events, about 120 kg was collected before being recycled or deposited responsibly. There were the usual suspects of cigarette butts, plastic bottles and fishing line, but, personally I was flabbergasted to pick up a can of Schweppes Lemonade Shandy which was dated from 1986 and a Golden Wonder crisp wrapper also from some point in the 1980s. How had that stuff been swilling around in the sea for the best part of 30 years before being washed up? It doesn’t go away.
So, we can’t undo litter louting from years gone by. A few years ago we were forever picking up the plastic stems of cotton-buds. SAS have, however, repeatedly brought this to the attention of the major manufacturers and the labelling on the packaging often now clearly discourages flushing these down the loo. I’ve witnessed first hand the liberation afforded to school children when they discover that they are permitted (and actively encouraged) to shout the word “poo” at the top of their voices in a classroom when SAS have been running an educational session. The purpose, in case you are wondering, is to help them to learn about “the four P’s” that it’s okay to put down the toilet…pee, poo, paper and puke. These may be small things but if it causes people to think before they flush then our seas might just be treated a bit less like a fluid landfill site.
So if turning up at a beach clean raises the profile of an issue, gets others involved in the debate, creates a social atmosphere and enables us to influence positive change then that might just go some way towards answering the why? Things have moved a long way in a relatively short space of time. SAS was founded in 1990 by surfers who were sick of getting sick and coming face to face with faeces, tampons, condoms and needles in the water. It’s grim, but that was the catalyst. Much of that has been effectively tackled, but there is still much to do.
I heard Billy Bragg state at a gig last year that apathy and cynicism are our biggest enemies. That is true in so many areas of life. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the state of our environment, our economy, our politics or a host of other things. One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard was directed by a lady in our church towards a friend of mine who was feeling frustrated with some things there at the time. She stopped him in his tracks and said, “stop moaning, find some like-minded people and do something about it”. That has never left me. With that in mind, I’ll chose to be one of these:
B.
soul surfers 