Today, Yvette Bree, discovery leader at Sandbanks Provincial Park for over 30 years, shares some insights about this season.
I am very lucky: I live in a great country, a great province and I have enjoyed a race in an incredibly beautiful park.
Typically, my job is to inspire visitors to appreciate the natural world around them, bring history to life, and encourage stewardship to respect not only this park, but to take these ideals home.
However, in an extremely busy park, many of us have been asked to help with some of the basic operations necessary to ensure the smooth running of the park.
too much trash
Although I still have the opportunity to inspire visitors, some of my time has been dedicated to other tasks.
I wrote this blog in my head, having fun picking up litter on Dunes Beach in Sandbanks.
Except I didn’t find it funny.
Of course, with thousands of visitors arriving at Sandbanks daily, you’d expect there to be some rubbish: food wrappers unexpectedly caught in the wind, a towel forgotten on the beach, a beach toy that inadvertently falls out of a pile. of belongings while you return. to the car.
But there is a very sad and very large amount of trash left after a busy day at the beach, too much to have been “accidental.”
I came up with my own personal kind of crap, “the worst of the worst.”
Here are my top three:
Third place: anything plastic, especially those that have only been used once.
This includes water bottles and takeaway cups and containers, but I have been surprised by the number of items that could and should be used more than once, but have instead been carelessly discarded.
I’m sure discount stores are happy to have repeat business, but when did kids’ sand castle buckets and shovels become a “one-and-done” purchase?
Second place: cigarette butts
Small but striking and very “difficult” to catch, they seem to be everywhere. I must have picked up hundreds in one day, well aware that they were in someone else’s mouth.
They are also full of dangerous chemicals, such as nicotine, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, lead, arsenic, ammonia, uranium, benzene, acetone, and butane, to name just a few.
These poisonous chemicals can leach into the soil and be ingested by animals, sometimes even children.
Smoking is not allowed on the beach; Dispose of all cigarette butts properly.
First place: diapers (and not just for the obvious reason)
Adults throw these diapers into the bushes, setting a bad example of respect for the environment around them to the children they are raising.
These children will grow up and repeat the behaviors they learned when they were little, which means that twenty years from now we will still be picking up too much trash.
You may have your own top three, but you get the idea.
Let’s show respect for each other, the park staff working hard to maintain our parks and the beautiful landscapes around us.