The seas do not pollute themselves. Each plastic bottle, each cap and each cellophane wrapper that we see on the beach, floating adrift or at the bottom of the ocean, comes from a person, a household, a business or a company that carrlessly discarded them. An estimated of 500 billion new plastic bottles are produced each year, many of which end up in landfills without proper disposal nor any waste treatment at all. Nature is wise in its processes, however, it is not prepared to integrate synthetic material into organic life’s cycles. Therefore, those bottles, wrappers and caps, along with thousands of tons of dispersed material, will remain as polluting waste for centuries (even millennia, depending on the material).
Reducing the indiscriminate use of single-use plastics and synthetic material in our lives are as important as cleaning up the ecosystems. At Pronatura Noroeste we have been committed for more than 30 years to the cleanliness and conservation of the coasts, seas and oceans. This September we have an opportunity to make this commitment visible, by participating in an international cleanup day in the Gulf of Santa Clara in Sonora, La Odisea in the San Quintin Valley, and Arroyo San Miguel State Park in Ensenada, Baja California.
Civil society organizations, municipal governments, some educational centers, and the community itself are also collaborating in the cleanup. The impact of this day will be not only local, but also global, as it is part of the International Coastal Cleanup strategy in more than 60 countries promoted by the Ocean Conservancy. A characteristic of this day is that the classification and counting of waste will be carried out to generate useful information about the type of artificial waste found at each site in order to establish prevention strategies.
Likewise, this important conservation work is linked to the “Clean Seas” campaign by the United Nations Environment Program, of which we have been a part since last July.
Of particular interest is the cleanup day at Arroyo San Miguel State Park, north of Ensenada, to be held on Saturday, September 24th. This is due to the first anniversary of the decree by which the Arroyo San Miguel acquired the status of State Park for the legal protection of 67 hectares of the coastal landscape.
For this event, we will have the collaboration of the Department of Ecology of the municipality of Ensenada, students from the School of Administrative and Social Sciences of the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC), the group Unidos por Ensenada, the Ensenada Technological Institute of TecNM, the SLAP Architects Firm, surfers from Peninsula Longboard & Film, as well as residents of San Miguel and volunteers.
At the same time, the diving group Cuidemos el Oceano, will undertake an underwater cleanup in Puerto Arbolitos field # 6 off the coast of Ensenada. It is worth mentioning that as part of this Alliance of organizations, last Saturday, September 17th, this group collected 200 kg of iron, 594 kg of carpets and textiles, 1384 kg of plastic, 181 kg of glass and 1188 kg of tires from the El Gallo stream, with the intention of preventing this waste from reaching the sea.
On the same Saturday, September 24th, an international surfing tournament will be held at San Miguel beach, led by Peninsula Longboard & Film, to the delight of surf lovers and regular visitors to this beach, considered the cradle of surfing in Mexico. In addition, there will be gift books donated by the Ensenada Institute of Technology and we will have educational and recreational activities for children and families who visit us.
Join this brigade and be part of the change, so that every bottle, every container and every wrapper that today pollute the Arroyo San Miguel State Park, are removed from the ecosystem and we preserve a worthy outdoor space for our families.
