2008 Woodie Awards
Eco-Rollins Satellite Beach Clean-up Successful
Members from Eco-Rollins participate in a beach clean-up at Satellite Beach.
Kelly McNoldy
Issue date: 10/21/05 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
Last Saturday, 30 individuals from the environmental friendly club, Eco-Rollins, headed over to Satellite Beach to recover over a dozen bags of trash and recyclables in order to make the world a cleaner and safer place for man and animals alike.
The team arrived at the beach around 12:30 p.m. and the last people did not leave until after 6 p.m. "We enjoyed the sun, surf and a BBQ all afternoon while saving countless birds, sea turtles and marine mammals," said Eco-Rollins president Tyler Kartzinel, class of 2007.
During the clean-up, many members learned what trash could do to these beach and water-fairing animals. "We picked up straws and learned about how pelicans think they are fish and choke, how sea turtles think plastic bags are jellyfish and suffocate and how dolphins starve when they get stuck in six-pack rings," said Kartzinel.
During the clean-up, several people stopped by and asked what the group was and what they were doing and why. "The point of the clean-up was to be responsible and caring members of the community, but moreover to learn just what becomes of our trash when we aren't thinking," said Kartzinel. "With a little bit of leg work we helped some people who would not otherwise have been so concerned about the environment develop a vested interest in litter control."
The cleaning took less than an hour and many people claimed to have a better time at this beach clean-up then just going to the beach. "This weekend we showed that we can have a better time at the beach as a group than most other people have on the weekend," said Kartzinel, "we can find ways to make helping the environment a great time."
Trash in the oceans and on the beaches is a major environmental issue that has not been looked over with as much vigor as other issues. For ages now, humans have been using the ocean as a dumping ground and the marine animals are the ones feeling the effects of it. Fish, whales, and dolphins suffocate on dumped fishing nets and eat the garbage in the ocean thinking that it is food. Plastic bags, for example, have been known to block many important systems in animals when swallowed. In one instance, a sperm whale was found to have a plastic bag blocking its digestive system causing it to die because of starvation.
Other instances of the amount of trash in the ocean are startling. An island 300 miles from the nearest inhabited island and over 3000 miles from the nearest continent was found to have over 950 pieces of garbage on its shoreline. Over 145,600 pounds of trash and 5,400 pounds of recyclables were retrieved during California Coastal Clean-Up Day just this past September. Keeping all of this garbage out of our beaches and waters is as easy as taking that couple extra of steps to the trash can.
Eco-Rollins is planning future events like this. If you are interested, you can go to the weekly meetings at 12:30 p.m., Tuesdays, in the Environmental Studies building right next to the bookstore.
The team arrived at the beach around 12:30 p.m. and the last people did not leave until after 6 p.m. "We enjoyed the sun, surf and a BBQ all afternoon while saving countless birds, sea turtles and marine mammals," said Eco-Rollins president Tyler Kartzinel, class of 2007.
During the clean-up, many members learned what trash could do to these beach and water-fairing animals. "We picked up straws and learned about how pelicans think they are fish and choke, how sea turtles think plastic bags are jellyfish and suffocate and how dolphins starve when they get stuck in six-pack rings," said Kartzinel.
During the clean-up, several people stopped by and asked what the group was and what they were doing and why. "The point of the clean-up was to be responsible and caring members of the community, but moreover to learn just what becomes of our trash when we aren't thinking," said Kartzinel. "With a little bit of leg work we helped some people who would not otherwise have been so concerned about the environment develop a vested interest in litter control."
The cleaning took less than an hour and many people claimed to have a better time at this beach clean-up then just going to the beach. "This weekend we showed that we can have a better time at the beach as a group than most other people have on the weekend," said Kartzinel, "we can find ways to make helping the environment a great time."
Trash in the oceans and on the beaches is a major environmental issue that has not been looked over with as much vigor as other issues. For ages now, humans have been using the ocean as a dumping ground and the marine animals are the ones feeling the effects of it. Fish, whales, and dolphins suffocate on dumped fishing nets and eat the garbage in the ocean thinking that it is food. Plastic bags, for example, have been known to block many important systems in animals when swallowed. In one instance, a sperm whale was found to have a plastic bag blocking its digestive system causing it to die because of starvation.
Other instances of the amount of trash in the ocean are startling. An island 300 miles from the nearest inhabited island and over 3000 miles from the nearest continent was found to have over 950 pieces of garbage on its shoreline. Over 145,600 pounds of trash and 5,400 pounds of recyclables were retrieved during California Coastal Clean-Up Day just this past September. Keeping all of this garbage out of our beaches and waters is as easy as taking that couple extra of steps to the trash can.
Eco-Rollins is planning future events like this. If you are interested, you can go to the weekly meetings at 12:30 p.m., Tuesdays, in the Environmental Studies building right next to the bookstore.