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Sarah Thornington makes art from trash.

“The day after I saw my first Kingfisher,” Cape Cod artist Sarah Thornington told writer Andrea Pyenson, “I found a big piece of canopy material with frayed edges that looked perfect for a Kingfisher…. This piece also includes a creamer container, tar paper, part of a July 4th hat, and a shotgun shell, among other things.” In 2019, Sarah decided to pick up plastic on her daily beach strolls and keep a tally. She had a goal to pick up 2,000 pieces by the end of the year; she reached her goal in nine days, and she hasn’t stopped.

She also hasn’t stopped making art from her finds, and bowls from discarded “ghost gear.” “The most important thing we can do for the planet,” she says, “is to find wonder in it: You protect what you love.”

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“In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference.”

– Rachel Carson, marine biologist and author of Silent Spring

• Meet the Guardian of Maryland’s Gunpowder River

• Rachel Carson in Woods Hole

• The Pristine Rivers of Patagonia

• Pete Seeger’s Clearwater Sloop (+Playlist!)

• Art From Trash on Cape Cod Beaches

• Nature-Based Water Solutions in Colorado

• Recipe: Oysters With Strawberry Mignonette

• Climate Quick Tip: Save Your Oyster Shells, Save the Ocean

• Podcast: Is Organic Beef Better for the Planet?

• Daily Dot: Meet the “Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage”

• Don’t Flush Your Expired Meds

• Recycle Your Fishing Gear

FEATURED STORIES

BIG IDEAS AND LOCAL CHANGEMAKERS

Bluedot Kitchen

“It was a lifeblood river, home to billions of spawning fish, and all the wild animal and bird life that followed,” Sam Moore writes about the Hudson River of a century or more ago. “Sturgeon were so plentiful they were known as ‘Albany beef.’ The sloops themselves were a testament to the raw abundance of this landscape, and they were framed and planked with the forests of New York, black locust, red cedar, and white oak. In those days, a ship’s carpenter could find the beginnings of a sturdy keel by going for a walk.” 

About a year ago, Sam joined the crew of one of these sloops — the Clearwater, built more than 50 years ago by folk singer Pete Seeger to spread the gospel of clean water, which was, at that point, not a term you’d use to describe the Hudson. Come for the story, and stay for the playlist Sam put together for us. 

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Illustration by Elissa Turnbull

“You can tell from their name — Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage — that this group of 65‒85-year-old women don’t take themselves too seriously,” wrote Dot, when she profiled these Climate Champs. Although, she notes, “they’re very serious about the problem they’re addressing: trash in the ponds on Cape Cod where they swim.” Members have excavated everything from golf balls to a robin’s-egg blue toilet. The 30 women clean up 20 ponds each year, removing more than 100 pounds of trash per pond. “Some of our members would say, ‘I’m doing this for the environment,’ and some would say, ‘I’m doing this for the adventure, or comradeship,’” Susan said, “but what drives this group is people finding a better way to be happy.” Read more about these delightful Climate Champs. And sign up for a daily dose of Dot here.

BUY LESS/BUY BETTER: Natural Curiosity

What You Can Do: Properly Dispose of Fishing Line (and other Marine Debris)

Boat US reports that more than 100,000 marine mammals die from ingesting debris or becoming entangled in fishing lines, nets, and other types of derelict fishing gear. You can help by properly disposing of your fishing gear. Or set up your own recycling. BoatUS tells you how.

The Keep-This Handbook

Please don’t flush your expired or unwanted medications down the toilet, where they get into our waterways and can harm marine creatures. Instead, save them until a Take-Back Day (typically April and October) or ask at your local pharmacy if they’ll accept them. And for how to dispose of a whole bunch of items, don’t miss Bluedot’s Guide to Getting Rid of (Almost) Anything.

Cleaning Up Plastic Beach

It all started with dog poop bags. Almost every other day, my husband and I would come across an unused one on our early-morning walk along the beachfront with our terrier. Sometimes, even a whole roll of bags. We’d stoop and snag them, adding to our own stash, joking that at this rate, we’d never have to buy any for ourselves.

From there, though, it became almost impossible to ignore the rest of the litter along the sidewalk: empty chip bags, plastic water bottle caps, plastic cups. And on the beach just beyond the sidewalk: deflated balloons, plastic bottles big and small, lighters, and bits and pieces of styrofoam, so much styrofoam. I couldn’t stand to just look at it anymore, so about a year ago, I got myself one of those grabber tools and headed out to the sand. I filled a large garbage bag in half an hour and felt like I barely made a dent. So I started going out two or three times a week. Neighbors walking by always stopped to thank me; one even brought me a bottle of prosecco, and another pledged to start collecting trash himself. 

A lot of the trash on what my family now calls Plastic Beach (after the Gorillaz album inspired by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch) washes up from the ocean, tangled up with driftwood and seaweed. It’s a problem along waterways across the country. As Ben Haliburton, water program coordinator for Allegheny CleanWays in Pennsylvania, says of the shores of the Monongahela River, “Anything that floats will find its way here.” It’s true; I’ve seen everything from a nightstand to a tire, still attached to its wheel, on Plastic Beach. Then there’s the junk people leave — buckets, collapsible chairs, soda and beer cans. (Why anyone would choose to litter is beyond me.)

Sometimes cleaning up Plastic Beach feels overwhelming — there’s just so much trash, and as soon as I pick up these plastic cups, more will wash up, so what’s the point? But then I remind myself, the less plastic junk going back into the ocean, the better. And I think back to one Saturday morning about a month ago, when I went down to the beach and found it packed with people picking up trash. A group of local restaurants and cafes were sponsoring a beach cleanup, offering coffee and matcha and breakfast burritos to anyone who showed up. They’d done such a good job, there was hardly any litter left for me to collect. I sat on the sand for a while, reveling in the view of waves crashing on a beach free of trash. Remembering what the shore looked like that day keeps me going. 

Enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you next week.

– Robin Jones (and Emily Cain, Leslie Garrett, and Jamie Kageleiry)

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