Today was a good day. I didn’t do much more compared to other days, but it was a learning day.

My wife and I were talking platitudes while contemplating the small evening waves in an otherwise calm sea. We stayed longer than usual on the beach, as the kids were knocked out after some good swimming effort, so we took the chance of hoping for some extra time for ourselves, expecting a beautiful sunset in a classical but undeniably wonderful Mediterranean scenery.

But then... I noticed something unusual floating as I was looking towards a pair of late snorkelers. It was a branch. Wow, I thought, the evening stream will probably bring some interesting stuff ashore. I wasn’t even close of being wrong. The branch was approaching and around it you could notice plenty of “interesting stuff”: rubbish. Soon the rubbish reached the shore and the whole Mediterranean magic scenery became flaccid.

Both of us were quiet. Then suddenly my wife headed for the branch and started using it as a sweep to gather the plastic. I jumped in to help and it wasn’t long until I entered the water and simply started gathering whatever plastic pieces I could reach with my hands. We’ve gathered all kind of plastic, bottles, straws, balloons, pieces of plastic bags, cigarette butts, seringes, and the list could go on. We were both doing endless ways back and forth to the nearest garbage can. We did this for almost one hour until the sea decided to take the garbage patch back from the shore and so the marvelous Mediterranean sunset scenery returned. We were staring helplessly, on one side at the garbage patch moving out at open seas while some unfortunate seagull was fishing God-knows-what out of it, on the other side at the tiny white styrofoam pieces remaining on the sand. How on Earth could those be gathered? Millions of these are swallowed daily by fish, birds and all the marine fauna, and we have no idea whatsoever what impact will it have on the long term.

In any case, I estimate we have gathered around one or two kilogrammes of plastic… Basically nothing. But when and where to stop? And why did we bother in the first place? My kid knocked it at the end asking how do we know that all the plastic we’ve gathered is not going to be thrown again in the sea. The truth is we don’t. We can just hope it will be sorted and recycled or disposed properly.

The learnings we’ve received today were quite a few…

First of all, the hypocrisy level decreases significantly when wearing a 4Ocean bracelet. It doesn’t matter the object, whether it is a bracelet or anything else. The psychological factor is very powerful when the artifact is charged with a statement — in this case that its price amounted for cleaning 1 pound of plastic from the ocean and that it’s fabricated from recycled plastic. I wouldn’t say that the bracelet alone made us clean the garbage, but it definitely gave us a kick in the arse.

Another learning is about people. At that time on the beach there were less than ten percent from the number of people at noon. From those, only two plus partially one kid jumped in to gather the thrash. I find it consternating because: those who weren’t there will live carelessly as before, drinking further their mojitos with unrecyclable plastic straws; on the other hand, those who were on the beach simply did not give a fuck. Only one older guy came over to congratulate us and helped with one (1) transport to the garbage can before going for a swim. Of course, nobody likes getting his hands dirty, and imagine how many mouths I’ve touched indirectly when picking those mugs… But for crying out loud, how can you just ignore it?

The next one was about myself. I was feeling repulsion to humans every time I was reaching for a plastic piece and instinctively trying to imagine how it was used and how it ended up in the sea. I felt elated thinking how good am I compared to the rest of the people on the beach. I felt disgusted of myself for the previous thought. I questioned my very own motivation. Why, oh why was I cleaning up the garbage? It wasn’t like it would mean anything compared to how much more was still out there floating or being ingested by innocent creatures. Looking into my children’s eyes I’ve got my needed motivation. It was to make a statement. Like in 1984, you have to believe in it before you die. It doesn’t matter if somebody sees it or not. The individual has to believe in it. The inner fabric of the person has to be changed in such a way to believe it…