Cleanup on the beach of a plastic beach

The film “Plastic Soup” by Chris Jordan shows images of a cleanup operation on a plastic beach in the Pacific: Between 2000 and 2006, plastic and polystyrene accounted for over 75% of the rubbish washed up on the coast (source: “Marine Beach Litter Monitoring” of the international marine protection agreement OSPAR). On beaches used by tourists, rubbish is not only an environmental problem, but also an aesthetic one. Which tourist wants to lie down with their beach towel next to a pile of plastic rubbish? Cleaning tourist beaches is very expensive. For example, on the German North Sea island of Norderney, the beaches have to be cleaned continuously with a special vehicle or by hand at the start of the season. Cleaning beaches of plastic rubbish again and again may seem like a Sisyphean task, but every effort counts. The plastic collected must then be recycled sensibly. If the flow of new plastic were to decrease, the effect of the clean-up campaigns would of course be even more positive.