Martin Dorey wants to make the world a better place, and he thinks this starts with ridding the beaches of marine plastic. The UK-based surfer/writer has created a hashtag to help his cause – you guessed it: #2MinuteBeachClean
Dorey believes that if everyone spent 2 minutes picking up “rubbish” and taking it home, it would make a world of difference. And he’s right!
My mom, being a steward of the Earth, always had us pick up trash from beaches when we were kids. The most prevalent trash I remember was balloons and strings. On beaches where beach combing was allowed, we would collect shells with holes in them and string them on the balloon strings to make shell chimes for the motorhome!
In Dorey’s interview with BBC, he goes through a 2 minute clean, showing us what he finds (which is pretty disturbing).
The video shows Dorey collecting shotgun shells from America, a blood bag from Spain, fishing nets, butter containers, a packaged ham sandwich from France, and a glow stick.
Because of Dorey’s effort, this cleaning strategy has become a national campaign in Ireland. Many people tweet at Dorey during their beach cleans from all around the world as well.
“The beach belongs to everybody. It’s all our mess, it’s all our problem and it’s just a little bit of social responsibility. And also, if you pick up someone else’s litter you’ll actually feel quite good.”
The end goal? “To make all of our beaches litter free, that we start thinking about our plastic use, that maybe we go to the supermarket or the shops and think twice about buying something that’s got plastic packaging. We need to look after our planet, and the beaches are a great place to start.”
Abbey Dufoe 