Who really cleans up the beaches twice a day?

Mother Ocean at high tide.

Recently, it has become more and more evident that marine debris is also coming from land-based sources: Recreational beachgoers who leave behind their picnic garbage and cigarette filters on the beach to be washed out with the tides into our oceans and bays and back onto our beaches. 

Did you know these Styrofoam plastic cups will be around for 50 years, and a plastic beverage bottle has a life of 150 years? 

The litany of litter is as varied as the products available, but it all shares a common origin. At a critical point, someone, somewhere, mishandled it--either deliberately or thoughtlessly. 

EVERY PIECE OF LITTLER HAS A PERSON'S FACE BEHIND IT.

BUCEAA: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem!"

Note the smooth, wet area of sand in the lower one-third of the photo. Soon it will be high tide and all this debris will be in the ocean forever, unless divers find it and haul it out.

Going...

The tide is coming in and is doing a fine job in cleaning up the Styrofoam cups left by careless picnickers.

Going...

Closer and closer it gets...until...the cup is...

Gone.

It will take a diver to find it now.