Wonderful Grandmother Does a Beach Clean Up Each Week. See What She Wants Now!
She made a New Year’s Resolution in 2018. She would personally clean up 52 beaches. That would be “WOW!” for anyone – but especially for a 70-year old grandmother!
She kept that resolution. Pat Smith is from Cornwall in the UK, and she cleaned 52 beaches – and, interestingly, during this process she gained a deeper insight into the litter problem.
I’ve written about grandmothers before. There are so many wonderful grandmothers around the world who are doing wonderful things.
And Pat Smith is another one. She’s thrilled that she succeeded with her resolution – but knows there’s still a lot of work to do. She founded the environmental campaign group Final Straw Cornwall, and kept an online journal of her beach clean up work.
Sometimes she was discouraged – she’d come back to a beach she’d previously cleaned, and find it dirty again. But it was wonderful when friends, volunteers and her grandchildren joined her to with a beach clean up.
After doing this for quite a while, though, she decided this volunteer work, while great, wasn’t enough. Although she will continue (“The beaches need me!” she said), she says she realises that she is really only scratching the surface of a much bigger problem.
Single-use plastics are such a scourge. They need to have an end-of-life reuse programmed into them, so that they never become waste. And that will need legislation. Which needs politicians.
And she also has a message for every one of us:- “We all need to wake up to the fact that we only have one precious planet and that every one of us needs to take responsibility for looking after it.”
And she adds:-
“A lot of the rubbish I have picked up consists of everyday items,” says Pat. “These things are used by all of us and it is shocking to find them polluting our beautiful beaches. Please let’s try to be more thoughtful in this coming year. I’m driven to try and protect our living planet for my children and grandchildren, and I will continue to do everything in my power to achieve that.”
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Warm regards,
P.S. Don’t forget to download your free green living handbook “Live Well, Live Green” here.
All I can say is that when I am 52 I hope I have as much energy as them
For sure Caroline, I just love writing about these wonderful grandmothers, they are so inspiring – and I agree, I hope I have as much energy as them!