Service Learning- Marina Beach and Yost Park Clean-Up
For my service learning project I got a group together to do an hour clean up at Edmonds Marina Beach and an hour clean up at Yost Park. Only one person ended up showing up which was a bummer, but that meant more work for us which ended up feeling very rewarding. The person who showed up is Casey Stepenski, her email is casey.stepenski@go.shoreline.edu
I organized this activity and my goal was to just make our local beach and park just a little bit cleaner, maybe prevent some marine wildlife from getting caught in plastics or ingesting plastics. We started at Edmonds Marina beach at 9:00 over in the parking area near the dog park and the honey buckets. There was A LOT of trash, including some very strange ones like a lone sock, q-tips, and countless cigarette butts. We then moved to the rocky area. There was lots of trash in and around the rocks, random things like flyers, receipts, and napkins. We walked down along the water, the tide was actually out pretty far. Not much trash was found down there. We moved up near the log area where we found trash like plastic snack bags, some orange peels, straw wrappers, and some granola bar wrappers. Our last area that we focussed on was around the picnic tables. I found SO MANY straw wrappers... I should have counted how many I found because it was an impressive amount. We also found a few plastic snack bags full of fruits and veggies, which was kind of alarming to find, a child must have left them behind. We ended up filling a whole large kitchen trash bag, which I was NOT expecting. We finished around 10:05 and then we were off to Yost Park.
We arrived at Yost Park at 10:17 and immediately began our next clean up. We started, again, in the parking area. We found lots of random plastics, mostly wrappers to different snacks. As we moved into the beginning of the trail area, we found lots of plastic binding material that was left behind by a construction crew, which was disappointing, along with 2 long metal wires. We picked those up carefully, and then continued on our way. On the trails we found more plastics like dog poop bags, plastic grocery bags, plastic juice and soda bottles. We ended up not finding as much trash as we did at the beach, I thought for sure it was going to be the other way around. We finished at 11:23. We ended up searching for trash for a little over an hour because we stopped a few times to pet cute dogs.
This was quite an experience. Although it seems so simple and there were only two of us, it was very rewarding. It ended up being harder work than I was expecting. At the end of both the hours of the trash pick-ups, I was covered in a layer of sweat and probably a layer of dirt. I think that is is extremely important to help out our community, we all use the space and it is our duty to keep it clean and have as little impact on our environment as we possibly can. I am planning on doing this in different areas I visit often at least once a week this summer. If everyone was able to do this once in a while, our impact would decrease greatly. The amount of trash I was able to accumulate and properly dispose of in just 2 hours was a lot and I think it definitely made a difference. Now think if every family in Edmonds did this for even just 30 minutes a week or a few times a week. This experience definitely connects to what we have been learning about Human Impact on our oceans. The amounts of plastic that end up in our oceans is sickening, and by picking some up for a few hours I feel good about the amount that I kept out of our oceans. I feel more strongly than I ever have about making sure I do what I can to lessen our impact on our environment. Even though Yost Park isn't right next to the water, there are many little streams that end up draining into Puget Sound, so the clean up there helps our oceans too. I want to make it a personal goal to spread the word about how important it is that we all take action to clean up after ourselves and others and make sure trash is properly disposed of. I feel really good about what I've done for the planet and our community today and I want to get others involved with doing the same. I have many friends that aren't doing too much over the summer so I am hoping to get them involved with helping to keep our beaches and parks clean. It is amazing how much damage we can do, but it is even more amazing what good we can do in just a few hours. I am extremely thankful for this experience.
pictures were taken by Casey Stepenski whose email I have included in the first paragraph.
I organized this activity and my goal was to just make our local beach and park just a little bit cleaner, maybe prevent some marine wildlife from getting caught in plastics or ingesting plastics. We started at Edmonds Marina beach at 9:00 over in the parking area near the dog park and the honey buckets. There was A LOT of trash, including some very strange ones like a lone sock, q-tips, and countless cigarette butts. We then moved to the rocky area. There was lots of trash in and around the rocks, random things like flyers, receipts, and napkins. We walked down along the water, the tide was actually out pretty far. Not much trash was found down there. We moved up near the log area where we found trash like plastic snack bags, some orange peels, straw wrappers, and some granola bar wrappers. Our last area that we focussed on was around the picnic tables. I found SO MANY straw wrappers... I should have counted how many I found because it was an impressive amount. We also found a few plastic snack bags full of fruits and veggies, which was kind of alarming to find, a child must have left them behind. We ended up filling a whole large kitchen trash bag, which I was NOT expecting. We finished around 10:05 and then we were off to Yost Park.
We arrived at Yost Park at 10:17 and immediately began our next clean up. We started, again, in the parking area. We found lots of random plastics, mostly wrappers to different snacks. As we moved into the beginning of the trail area, we found lots of plastic binding material that was left behind by a construction crew, which was disappointing, along with 2 long metal wires. We picked those up carefully, and then continued on our way. On the trails we found more plastics like dog poop bags, plastic grocery bags, plastic juice and soda bottles. We ended up not finding as much trash as we did at the beach, I thought for sure it was going to be the other way around. We finished at 11:23. We ended up searching for trash for a little over an hour because we stopped a few times to pet cute dogs.
This was quite an experience. Although it seems so simple and there were only two of us, it was very rewarding. It ended up being harder work than I was expecting. At the end of both the hours of the trash pick-ups, I was covered in a layer of sweat and probably a layer of dirt. I think that is is extremely important to help out our community, we all use the space and it is our duty to keep it clean and have as little impact on our environment as we possibly can. I am planning on doing this in different areas I visit often at least once a week this summer. If everyone was able to do this once in a while, our impact would decrease greatly. The amount of trash I was able to accumulate and properly dispose of in just 2 hours was a lot and I think it definitely made a difference. Now think if every family in Edmonds did this for even just 30 minutes a week or a few times a week. This experience definitely connects to what we have been learning about Human Impact on our oceans. The amounts of plastic that end up in our oceans is sickening, and by picking some up for a few hours I feel good about the amount that I kept out of our oceans. I feel more strongly than I ever have about making sure I do what I can to lessen our impact on our environment. Even though Yost Park isn't right next to the water, there are many little streams that end up draining into Puget Sound, so the clean up there helps our oceans too. I want to make it a personal goal to spread the word about how important it is that we all take action to clean up after ourselves and others and make sure trash is properly disposed of. I feel really good about what I've done for the planet and our community today and I want to get others involved with doing the same. I have many friends that aren't doing too much over the summer so I am hoping to get them involved with helping to keep our beaches and parks clean. It is amazing how much damage we can do, but it is even more amazing what good we can do in just a few hours. I am extremely thankful for this experience.
pictures were taken by Casey Stepenski whose email I have included in the first paragraph.
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