A Sisyphean task that still needs to be done -- and is worth attempting month after month

The kind of sight you don't want to see at a beach

A more close up shot of some of the debris brought in by the tides

On days like this, efforts to clean up the beach can feel like 

a Sisyphean task -- but some of us try to do so just the same...

  

A terrible sight greeted today's beach clean-up crew when we got to Cheung Chau's Tung Wan Tsai (Coral Beach) earlier today.  For the tides had washed up so much trash in the one month since my group was last there -- and, I have been told, another beach clean-up event had been separately effected -- that it was hard to believe that this was the same beach that I've been organizing monthly beach clean-ups of and at for some time now.

I had prioritized picking up broken pieces of glass along with pieces of styrofoam and plastic items earlier on when taking part in beach clean-ups (on Cheung Chau and also Lantau Island's Chi Ma Wan Peninsula).  But the sheer amount of styrofoam and other plastics found on Tung Wan Tsai since my beach clean-up group returned to concentrating our efforts there has prompted a narrowing of my focus to clearing those particular types of trash off the beach, and preferably before they disintegrate into pieces so small they're hard to separate from the sand and pick up.  

Today, there certainly was no lack of still whole plastic items (including -- but by no means restricted to -- drinks bottles) along with fairly large pieces of styrofoam and so much more strewn about the area.  What's more, during the time that my group was working away on Tung Wan Tsai, the tide kept on bringing up more and more trash; making an already formidable task feel truly Sisyphean!

Adding to my frustrations on this occasion -- and further threatening to make me lose my faith in humanity -- was that today's beach clean-up event had an over 50 percent rate of "no shows" among the registered participants.  I guess those folks who didn't turn up thought it was going to rain during the beach clean-up because it was indeed pretty gray this morning.  The fact of the matter though is that it didn't (as correctly forecasted -- for a change! -- by the Hong Kong Observatory). 

On a more positive note: this makes me even more grateful to the valiant few who did turn up to do their bit, beach clean-up veterans and newcomers alike.  Also, for the first time ever, two strangers who happened to be passing by stopped mid-hike to help clean the beach for a time!  

On the seventh anniversary of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami this past March 11th, the inspirational Funassyi Tweeted a message which Funatomo Makiko Itoh translated into English as follows:

Don’t say ‘this is all I can do’‬
No matter how small, no matter how little
If we can keep supporting each other
This year and next year and after that too
That would be a good thing nassyi. (。゜▽゜)
To not forget is important too nassyi~*       

Words to live by (including for beach clean-ups), I reckon... for humans and pear fairies alike!  So, while it certainly does have its demoralizing moments, I intend to keep organizing and taking part in beach clean-ups for a while to come!

 

*For those who didn't realize: Funassyi has a tendency to end sentences with the Japanese word nassyi (Pear) on account of its being a Japanese Pear Fairy ;)