Spring break is every college student’s favorite week of the year. Students from all over the world travel to Florida, Las Vegas, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic; these are some of the top college spring break destinations. Students will argue which is the top location for the ultimate spring break experience, but what they don’t take into consideration is the harm they are causing to the sea creatures because of their reckless behavior.
In my opinion, Las Vegas would be the best location for spring break because there is n coast line for drunk college students to pollute in. As I was in Panama City Florida for this past spring brake, I couldn’t stop thinking of all the beer cans, bottle tops, cigarettes, and everything else that the students were leaving on the beach and in the ocean, and how that would affect the creatures living there.
When I returned home I tried to find research on the pollution solely from spring break. There were zero hits on the internet; this was shocking to me because I have always seen the signs “throw your trash away” or “keep our oceans clean, don’t pollute” but every other time I have been to the beach, there never was a problem with people not throwing their trash out. Spring break however was very different. I actually have slices in my feet because of the amount of trash I stepped on; I cannot imagine the harm this causes the sea creatures. In some areas of the beach, know as the flags, the entire sand was a floor of beer cans. You physically could not walk without stepping on them.
(Hagerty, 2014)
One night when we went to walk the beach, My friends and I were pleasantly surprised to see a beach cleaning machine scooping up at much of the trash as possible. This was somewhat relieving to me, but I still wasn’t satisfied with the amount of garbage there probably was already washed out at sea, or under the sand, that would eventually surface and effect out beautiful oceans, or the small children enjoying a day on the beach.
(http://www.beachcleaners.com.au/media/BBC2000%20Right%20hand%20front%20photo.JPG)
Although I had a blast in Panama City, as I sit in my small dorm room admiring the wonderful tan I got while I was down there, I cant stop thinking about the awful effects spring break must do to our environment, and if there is any way we can try and limit these effects.
Meghan,
Your post was so interesting because I had never thought of all of the pollution that can occur while on Spring Break. While I was in Punta Cana, there were so many people walking along the beach who worked at the beach, collecting any type of trash such as cups or plastic bags. That was good that there were those machines to get all the trash down in Panama City! I have never seen any of those before, I wonder why we don’t have them at beaches up here!
Hi Meghan, I really liked your post. As someone whose never been away for spring break, I had honestly never given this a second thought. It’s great to know that there are machines cleaning the beaches but I agree with you, I can’t help but think that it probably isn’t enough. This is an issue that should receive more attention!