Volunteering to clean the coastline: why does it matter?
This fall we spent some time cleaning up the coastline by our Helsinki office. It was an eye-opening experience and we really wanted to share more, hoping more people will be inspired to help clean up the environment as well.
This article will share:
- how you can easily schedule your own ‘environment cleanup’ session through the city of Helsinki
- a list of things we found the most while trash picking (including the most surprising things, you’ll want to read that!)
- some reflections from the ResQ Club team
- recycling data and information on the health and environmental danger of everyday trash being thrown in nature
ResQ Club’s trash picking session: how it went and how we organised it
We gathered a team of 10 ResQ Clubbers and spent a couple of hours walking along the seashore collecting things that don’t belong to nature… and you can gather a lot of such items in just 2 hours!
Organising was really easy, the needed equipment and info on areas needing cleaning are provided by Sata kolkyt. We brought our own gloves and warm clothes and the city of Helsinki provided trash bags and garbage pickers through Sata kolkyt. At the end, we left the trash bags at the collection point where Sata Kolkyt cam to pick them up.
We would highly encourage anyone, whether you do it alone, with friends, or with your team, to gather and help clean up the environment as well. It may seem like a small thing but it makes a massive difference for the environment and for all animals who live in the area, saving them from injury, intoxication, or death.
What surprised us the the most:
- Litter is literally EVERYWHERE
- Some people don’t take responsibility for the items they buy and the trash they generate and throw everything into the nature
- We have seen hundreds of cigarette butts and packs, sometimes brands and slogans that haven’t existed in years...
The weirdest things we found:
- Old mattress
- Fireworks
- Strange plastic wire/cable in different colours
- Car tyre
- Lace panties - yes, you read it right (people tend to go swimming in this area, maybe someone changed their swimsuit and forgot the underwear on the beach)
Things we found the most of:
- The strange plastic wires
- Cigarette butts and snus bags
- Plastic wrapping in many shapes and colours
- Cans and broken glass
- Fast-food wrappings
Reflections from the team:
- Once you go "trash walking", there is no turning back. It changes your perspective towards different materials and litter, human cravings and the cost of convenience.
- Throwing litter into the environment is a bad habit (luckily habits can be overturned!)
- The litter found in nature reflects the bad habits of people: cigarette butts, fast-food, liquor bottles etc…
- The amount of plastic wrapping is unbelievable, so many things are designed with needless plastics wraps!
- Why do people consciously decide to throw their trash on the streets instead of taking a few steps to ensure their waste makes it to the trash can or recycling bin? It is a responsibility to recycle what you buy.
- What would people who throw trash in the street say if someone threw trash into their garden as thoughtlessly as they are throwing theirs into the nature/ gutter?
Recycling data and risks of trash being present in nature
Our experience onsite is only a fraction of what really happens when things are thrown into the nature, just the tip of the iceberg. To help better understand why it’s so important to preserve our environment (spoiler alert: to preserve our health and respect the environment), here are a few interesting data points:
Recycling: In Finland, 80 % (109kg) of the mixed waste thrown away could have been recycled if sorted, because a big part of the mixed waste consists of bio waste and plastics. On the positive side, recycling is increasing.
Cigarette butt: It is estimated that 4.5 trillion cigarette filters are littered each year worldwide (that’s approximately the weight of 150,000 elephants). One of the problems is that cigarette butts include a plastic filter, full of toxins by the time it’s thrown away, and a cigarette butt is estimated to take 18 months to 10 years to decay.
Plastic: All plastic that has ever been produced and has ended up in the environment is still present there, in one form or another. It is estimated that plastic takes from 500 years to 1 000 years to decay. Because plastic is non-biodegradable, the bacteria that causes organic materials to decay do not see plastic as food, and therefore ignores it. Instead, plastic becomes brittle (due to sunlight, oxidation, friction, animals nibbling on the plastic, etc… ) and gradually breaks down into millions of smaller and smaller pieces, until it is no longer visible by the naked eye. When pieces become as small as 5mm, they are considered micro-plastics, and after that when they continue to decay, they become nano-plastics. Nano plastics are so small that they are barely visible even under the most advanced microscopes.
More info about plastics available here.
Micro-plastics issue
- Environment-wise
In 2014, micro-plastics were found in polar ice, indicating that micro-plastics are carried not only by water currents but also by the wind. It ‘rains’ micro-plastics every day, even in the most remote regions of the world.
- Health-wise
People were already known to consume tiny plastic particles via food and water as well as breathing them in. Unfortunately, in a recent study, micro-plastics have been detected in human blood in almost 80% of the people tested. This shows the micro-plastic particles can travel around the body and may lodge in organs, potentially damaging human cells.
What kind of plastic was found in human blood?
- PET plastic (commonly used in drinking bottles) was found in half of the samples. Why not use a glass bottle instead?
- Polystyrene (used for packaging food and other products) was found in about 33% of the samples. Cooking you own meals to avoid processed food is the better alternative
- Polyethylene (used for carrier bags) was found in 25% of the samples. Not only do reusable textile bags come in thousands of designs and fashions… they also last longer!
With the big picture in mind, once again we can only encourage you to help clean up the environment. It’s a rewarding feeling spending time outdoors with family, friends or colleagues and at the same time contributing actively to saving the planet. There is no Planet B.
