This is not the way it should look. Photo: Surfrider Foundation


The Inertia

I’m elbow deep in garbage, reaching for the beer can I know is at the bottom of this bag. When I find it, I chuck it into the aluminum pile with glee. Between just two of us, we have filled four large garbage bags in our hour beach cleanup and now we just have to separate the recyclables. It’s not exactly how we imagined spending the last day of spring break in Costa Rica, but it had to be done. The scary part is that there is still enough trash on the beach to fill at least 30 more garbage bags.

The waves are pumping again and as I watch surfers make their way toward the shoreline I wonder if any of them would freak out if I just started throwing all of this trash in the ocean. I would never do that, but I learned recently there is a huge waste problem happening in almost every surf tourism area and somehow one of these bags full of garbage will still end up in the ocean one way or another. Crazy, right?

I hadn’t considered what happens to the garbage we generate while traveling until the day I watched heaps of it being washed out of a river mouth. I started asking questions after that and I learned a few things about surf and vacation destinations.

1. An estimated 25% of the trash is dumped in the rivers, forest, and ocean.

2. Almost every country has a recycling facility, but few areas have a recycling program.

3. Over 80% of all trash can be recycled or composted.

4. Many people still burn trash in their yard, which releases toxic, cancerous pollutants.

So here I am, an ocean-loving, tree-hugging, salt-gypsy, unknowingly contributing almost as much garbage and pollution to the environment as Donald Trump each time I go on a surf trip.

I want to surf in a clean ocean and breathe fresh air, so I set out to remedy things. It started as a small idea to create and sell art to fund recycling and environmental programs. That small idea has expanded into a much bigger project because the ocean isn’t the only thing at stake, like starving stray dogs and families living in abject poverty without clean water or enough food. These places we love to surf and explore need our help.

Can you imagine if one piece of the solution were as simple as pulling on a t-shirt? My original “small idea” eventually grew into creating Eco Organic Ethical Apparel. We’ve begun donating 100% of our profits from selling eco organic tees to protect the ocean and environment, rescue animals, end poverty, and enrich humanity. Our initial focus is on helping in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Puerto Rico. As we grow we’ll be able to further our impact around the world.

I don’t have a handy 1 to 1 ratio for the impact of each tee, because we realized it takes more than one person to bring great change. We didn’t want to limit ourselves to saying “We’ll clean up two pounds of trash from the ocean for each sale,” because we want to have more impact than that. We want to put recycling and environmental programs in every surf destination that currently dumps a quarter of their garbage in the ocean. We want to make sure that the 80% of trash that can be recycled is actually recycled. But here’s a glimpse at the impact a project like this can have through selling 1,000 tees:

-Provide 600 people with clean water and sustainable food for over four years (organic gardens, fruit trees, and filters).

-Rescue & spay 160 dogs while building more mindful communities.

-Bring recycling and environmental programs to five major surf tourism towns.

As surfers we love the ocean, but it needs to be more than a feeling. We need to take action, otherwise we’re going to ruin the one place that we truly feel at home. The mountains (of beach trash) are calling, and I must go.

Note: You can learn more about The Acoustic Collective’s Indigegogo campaign here, and see their first collection of apparel here

If you’d like to get involved, email ecosurf@liveacoustic.org

 
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