On the 9th of December 2018, I joined a group of OSC students as they participated in a beach cleanup event advertised by the Reefkeepers service group. This event would take place on the beaches of Mount Lavinia and we would be cleaning trash that littered the beach. Upon arrival I linked up with the other OSC students as we each received trash bags and gloves for collecting the trash. In total, there were 100 people all from varying groups in Sri Lanka.
Afterwards, we began to walk up the beach searching for traces of trash that could be found. Eventually we found that there was no searching required for trash, the beach was so littered that one could hardly take a step without finding some form of harmful trash. This trash would take the forms of straws, plastic spoons, cups and sometimes even large trash bags. Eventually we would stumble across mass amounts of trash buried in sand, sometimes so dense in waste that it could completely fill our bags.
After a while of collecting trash scattered across the beach and digging up mounds of trash from the ground people on the beach started to take notice of our actions. Occasionally we would have kids come up to us to dispose of their trash in a less environmentally harmful way. I felt that the actions of these kids was just as important as the cleanup. Not only were we cleaning up the already polluted beach but, we also possibly prevent those children from polluting the beach in the future.
In conclusion, I found that it was sad how such a beautiful location was plagued by the thick and dense pollution. I was ashamed at the ignorance of humanity as we allow our beaches and wildlife get destroyed just because we are too lazy to dispose of trash in a sanitary and eco-friendly method.