If you haven’t already heard, humans are killing the ocean.
That means our waves – the main source of our stoke – are at risk, therefore the very existence of the sport of surfing is at stake.
The good news is that we also have the capability to stall the degradation of our seas by being stewards of the shore. Aside from doing things like installing compost in our homes, educating our friends and family on environmental awareness, sourcing our produce from local and organic grocers etc, we can also make waves in our community towards organizing a beach cleanup.
Here are some tips for getting you started:
Connect with organizations doing it already
Reach out to an environmentally-conscious surf company and inquire about a sponsorship. Chances are, they’d be glad to offer their support of an save-the-waves endeavor. Communicate with them to see if they can offer some kind of advertising of the event on their platforms. Companies that already organize beach clean ups like 4ocean (link: https://4ocean.com/) would probably offer great insight towards putting together such an event.
Get Social
Utilize social media! Create an attractive, aesthetically pleasing post and make it shareable to ensure your audience is as broad as possible. Let your friends know and bring it up in while you’re waiting in the surf lineup at your local break. You’ll probably inspire a few helping hands as well. Facebook groups are also super useful, especially as they alert attendees with reminders before the event and you can get a rough estimate of the number of people coming.
Use Your Voice
Speech! Speech! Speech! Prepare something ahead of time for the beginning of the event and give a short talk about why you’ve chosen to organize a beach clean up, the importance of taking care of our oceans and shorelines, and the long-term impacts of continued events like these. Throwing in a few scary statistics about microplastics and the « plastic island » also goes a long way. Do your research! Your words can motivate the masses to keep doing things like this and give everybody some pep in their step as you all peruse the shoreline together.
Tell us about your experience with beach clean ups in the comments!
Save your soul – go surfing!
—Sarita, The Intern
