This is disgusting.

Enough said.

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=18693134

 

Ever walked a completely uninhabited beach and seen the shear volume of trash that washes up? Chances are not since most beaches get visitors and many visitors will pick it up.

I used to work for NASA at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and they have miles of literally untouched beaches. When I say untouched, I mean UNTOUCHED. NASA ceded control of these beaches (and most the space center) to the park service as a national wild life refuge and there is absolutely no public access. As a matter of fact, there is only ONE access point to the beaches there.

There used to be a small community on the beach of what is now the space center. When the center was established, the government bought out the residents and knocked down the houses - except for one. This one house, built in the 50s, is called "The Beach House" and is best known for astronaut pre-flight parties. It can also be reserved by NASA employees for "off site" meetings. It was in this capacity on a number of occasions that I got to spend some time at the beach house. During meeting breaks throughout the day I would take short walks on the beach. Afterall, where else in the US can you set foot on a beach that sees maybe 100 people a year?

So where am I going with this? Well the sad part is that I did not take back with me a memory of the beauty of an untouched beach. Instead my memory is of the shear amount of trash that had washed up there. I wouldn't say it was a junkyard, but it reminded me of some of the places I'd seen in third world nations. It was amazing how much crap is out there in the oceans of the world that finds its way back to shore.

To my knowledge the park service (which manages the beach since it is a national wildlife refuge) does do some pick up, but primarily only around the turtle nesting time.

 

A real shame. Glad to see you watch Fox News.

 

The Beach House has some interesting stories attached to it....

Secondly, there are uninhabited islands in the pacific used as junk yards as well.... pretty sad what humans do to the Earth.

M

 

I travel quite a bit. I've been to beaches around the world. I've been to almost every ocean. I've been to many seas around the world.

The only beach I have ever seen that did not have a great volume of trash was the Greek rocky beaches on the Mediterranean. And that particular beach happened to have a temple to Poseidon above it.

The Mediterranean sea itself was recently putrid. In the past several years the nations around it have done quite a bit to clean it up. Kudos to them. It's pretty nice nowadays. But they still have trash on their beaches.

I would disagree with you rocket and say chances are great. Even on uninhabited beaches.

I would say most visitors don't pick up other people's trash and a great many visitors don't even pick up their own. Many do pick up, but many does not equal most.


To be fair, I can think of one other beach that was clean. I once visited Hawaii and traveled over to see the lava entering the ocean... that area was pretty clean. Though it hurt my lungs

 

It ticks me off when I see people even throwing their cigarettes out their car window.

This commercial when I was a little kid had quite an impact on me.

 

She'll pay us back one day.