Trashy Beaches and the Tourists Who Make Them

I hope for your help to explore and protect the wild ocean in ways that will restore the health and, in so doing, secure hope for humankind. Health to the ocean means health for us.
-Sylvia Earle

     

      Saint Petersburg, Florida is one of the most beautiful places to live. Judging by the number of vacationers we get a year, almost 15 million, I would say the claim is practically indisputable (Sorolis). But, we have major problem. Tourists are great for our economy, but can be terrible for our beaches. A large part of the trash that ends up along our shores is the fallout from Spring Break beach parties and family events. It is not uncommon to see red solo cups and miscellaneous food packaging litter the sand as seagulls try and pick through the last bits of chip crumbs. Saint Petersburg is my home, and because tourists make up such a large part of our economy, I wanted to create a campaign which was aimed at educating tourists about the dangers of negligent trash disposal and what steps they could take to reduce their impact on marine life.

       Originally, the campaign was meant to involve city council members, Saint. Pete. locals,  and tourists. Part of the reason that our local beaches become over run with garbage during tourist season is that there are not enough places to dispose of trash along the beach and trash is not collected frequently enough. For many tourists, the ease of dropping and ignoring trash outweighs the cost of walking the length of shore back to the boardwalk to find the nearest trash can. The majority of Americans feel policies centered on protecting the environment should be a top priority (Anderson), so surveying beachgoers on their opinions of beach pollution should have been no problem. However, what began as a complex campaign quickly slowed down once Covid-19 regulations came into effect. No longer could I involve the public in such an interactive manner, but with help from our course resources I was able to reconstruct my campaign so that it focused more on education and awareness.

    

       I decided to create a series of posters which was meant to spread awareness of the effect negligent disposal behavior can have on marine life during tourist season. By bringing awareness, hopefully those who visited our beaches would reconsider the ways in which they dealt with trash on their vacation. A great resource for structuring my campaign was Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere by Pezzullo and Cox. It helped me to understand exactly how different types of advocacy campaigns influenced their audience, and how to increase the effectiveness of my own. For each "it starts with you" poster the animals are situated in such a way that illustrate how marine animals are negatively affected by the circumstances that we create. The "Spring Break Beach Bash" poster was meant to emphasize how Spring Breakers leave a significant amount of garbage on beaches. Whether this is specifically due to a lack of consideration or a lack of awareness I do not know, but I have provided below helpful alternatives to leaving trash on the beach.

• Reuse Publix or other shopping bags as small trash bags (for your own trash or what you find on the beach)
• Bring reusable food containers and water bottles 
• Open bulky packages before coming to the beach and properly dispose of any associated waste
• Keep trash in a cooler or ice chest when finished so it doesn't blow away
• Keep all food related garbage tightly sealed or tucked away so it is not collected by birds or wind
• If fishing, be sure to collect any broken line or fishing materials

Lastly, whatever you bring in, remember to bring out. It starts with you, let it end with you. 

References

Anderson, Monica., “For Earth day, Here’s How American’s View Environmental Issues.” Pew Research Center, Apr. 2017

Pezzullo, Phaedra C., Robert Cox. Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere.  5^th ed., Los Angeles, California, SAGE Publications, Inc., 2018

Sorolis, Sophia. “Tourism.” City of Saint Petersburg, Mar. 2020, www.stpete.org/economic_development/stpete_advantage/tourism.php.