This Is Our Natural World

Sunday the 20th of September 2020 was a lovely bright day, blue skies but chilly due to a brisk north east breeze. Having pre-planned to meet family south of Wicklow head, we all initially met up at Magheramore strand. Arriving down onto the beach it was a beautiful scene comprising surfers, swimmers and families all enjoying being out in it. However cop this…….

and this……….

Now, whoever left this pile of muck to include cans, plastic bottles, tent, kitchen utensils, wipes, nappies, you name it it was there, would appear to have put it into the black bags. WELL DONE, YOU OBVIOUSLY CARE FOR NATURE, PAT ON THE BACK. Then conveniently decided to leave it there for the next big storm to wash it all into the sea. But then again the idea that a high tide line can shift relative to weather conditions just would not enter the average persons head. That is how close to nature the average person is.

We are told to leave no trace, we should not need to be told, and when one considers the effort needed to bring all this stuff down to the beach, would it have been so difficult to carry it all back up again like responsible and considerate people would? No its just too much effort, lets just have the party and fuck the rest.

Ironically these same people probably do consider the environment when it comes to climate change etc which is sad, but reflective of the average person who will think nothing of purchasing a take away coffee (why?, the Italians don’t do take away coffee and they are the experts, instead they sit down with it) driving off and later chucking it out the window, as applies take away food, fizzy drink cans and bottles. I should know, just take a look in the hedgerows along the lane I live on.

Every single day there are new items of litter and wait for this, I know that it takes twenty minutes to eat a “happy meal” from McDonalds and also a snack box, because the nearest take away and McDonalds are both twenty minutes from my house and the wrappers/boxes end up outside my gate.

This is our world and I am being objective when I say that the average Joe or Josephine have no connection and do not give a shit about the environment. If so they would certainly not purchase baby wipes (plastic based so do not biodegrade), take away coffee cups (even if it is compostable it has to be placed in a compost bin, most will end up in a normal bin and so onto landfill), plastic bottles, body scrubs (the bits inside of many brands are plastic so get washed down the plug hole and eventually end up in the sea as micro plastics).

I could go on but you get the picture and no, I am not mad, crazy or on a rant, this hypocrisy, this double standard goes on every day of the week in most peoples lives. So yes, we should get rightly uptight at the gobshites that left the rubbish on Magheramore strand, Co. Wicklow, but we cannot let ourselves off the hook while we continue to buy into the convenience world of products that have become increasingly part of our lives over the last thirty years in particular.

A starting point for all would be to give up that take away coffee and instead sit down with it like an Italian, you would do yourself and the natural world a big favour………..

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