"Caleb," I called out to my partner who was on the other side of the small boat. "Over here."
My best friend Caleb and I were sent by our boss to photograph the "beautiful marine life" in the nearby coral reef for a magazine article I was writing. However, when I looked over the edge of my boat I saw so much trash I could barely stand to look.
I know Caleb saw it from where he stood at the other end of the deck, and I also knew he couldn't manage to tear his eyes away from it either.
Disgusting. Absolutely revolting.
Plastic bags, candy wrappers, and soda cans among many other pieces of garbage littered the otherwise blue waters everywhere you looked, making my brows furrow together. I was appalled. I hadn't realised just how much trash was thrown into oceans until now.
I tried looking into the water, past the waste, and saw a colorful coral reef, tainted by a huge black plastic bag that clung to it for dear life.
As a wildlife photographer and journalist, aquatic animals were a regular thing for me to see. However, never in my life had I seen so much litter in the ocean in one place.
"We... Caleb, we can not photograph this... it's horrible. I... oh, my goodness," I gasp as I see something devastating. A seahorse with its tail wrapped around a... a Q-tip?!
Suddenly my best friend is at my side with his camera. He shakes his head grimly before putting the camera up to his eye and snapping a photo of the seahorse, then at the trash around.
"We're publishing this article. People need to know about this," he tells me quietly. "And I know Sara, Michael, and Lucas would feel the same way. Which is why all 5 of us are gonna get out here and clean up as much as we can."
I nod. "Yeah. Let's head back. I'll call them and we'll come with nets and bags to collect all this. I'll write the article tonight. About this... whatever you can describe this as."
"A perfect representation of why I hate people?"
"Exactly."
And we did what we said we would, staying for 4 hours cleaning up as much rubbish as we could before it got dark outside. Caleb took a picture of each bag of trash we collected-- twelve.
We published the pictures in the article I wrote.
Garbage Covers Entire Coral Reef
Researchers Marina Welsh and Caleb Knight travel out to see a coral reef only to find... garbage.
"It's honestly one of the most horrible sights I've ever seen," says Layla Michaels, a resident of the nearby beach. "Thousands of pieces of trash wash up on my private beach every day and I always have to pick it up."
The researchers on the case photographed 12 bags of garbage from one scene alone, having stayed nearly 5 hours cleaning the area. They have a question.
Planet Or Plastic?
