Welcome to my blog. I will be sharing my beach trash stories here. For those that don’t know since 2013, I have been the self imposed guardian of the beaches. I would watch over what ever beach or river that I am in. To make sure others take their trash.
On today’s beach trash story, Yesterday at the beach in beautiful Puerto Rico,, a woman arrives with her boyfriend. She was smoking a cigarette. So being the guardian of the beach, I was watching her like a hawk. She came and started posing for the camera as her boyfriend was snapping pictures of her in the water as she smoked her poison. So I got closer because I knew what was about to happen.
Not under my watch
I immediately told her that the cigarette butt is trash and asked if she would like a bottle for her cigarette butt. She tells me, she already put it inside the rock. I reminded her that the cigarette butt is trash and contaminates just like one of my sign reads. That it also contains plastic and chemicals.
Running for a bottle
I then ran to get her a plastic bottle that I am sure to find in some bush and sure enough, I did. I handed her the water bottle and told her to put it inside and to use it all the time She was bewildered. Like why. But she put her cigarette butt inside.
So I the spoke to her boyfriend who spoke English so they could better understand me. I told him how that the cigarette butt contaminates and is trash and that we must care for Boriken and recited my sign, “Today you leave your trash, tomorrow your kids will play in it.
He agreed with me. and we had a conversation about that. I am just hoping he could relay that message and sentiment to his girlfriend. Who really seemed not to care as many don’t. How could a cigarette smoker care about what they do to the world, when they don’t even care about what they do to their own bodies. But I think that it is okay if they want to poison themselves. I truly believe that they need to leave nature and the world out of their bad decision.
Trying to hand me back the bottle
They tried to hand me back the bottle and I insisted they take it with them. Because we all know that she is going to smoke 10 more cigarette butts. She didn’t want to. But her boyfriend took it realizing that she was indeed going to smoke more at the other beaches they would go to. She would have gone leaving a footprint of poison everywhere. I have no doubt that she did and will continue doing so.
I am hoping that this encounter would have an affect on either of them. Hoping they could start becoming the change this island truly needs. Hoping that they start caring more.
But this is why I am compelled to visit the beach as much as I could even with my car falling apart. Why I choose to be the self imposed guardian of the beaches. Nature needs a voice and I will continue even with my trauma from being shot for recording a family leaving thrash, I shall continue. I feel like my presence at the beach and my signs are making a difference.
Use your voice
In closing, I feel like we must use our voice more and speak up more. Stand up for nature and not allow others to destroy it when we could use our voice to educate others.
Here in Boriken, many have friends and family members who smoke and who throw away trash. I am sure their ignorance won’t allow them to hear them out. But those who care should be the ones educating their family and friends and never settling for anything less. If your family member or in this case, girlfriend, throws a cigarette butt, pick it up after them. Help them understand. Because we are the change this world desperately needs. Lets be that change. Stay wild.