Kai's Beach 》 PlanetOrPlastic

Kai's Beach

Kai had always loved the ocean.

It wasn't really hard to guess why, considering he was practically raised in the water. He lived in Hawaii, within walking distance of the beach.

Pretty much as soon as he was able to walk, Kai's parents took him out to the ocean, so he could learn to swim. Then he learned to surf. After school every day, Kai was out on the beach, doing one or the other. Either way, he was in the water.

He especially loved this one part of his favorite beach. He considered it his "secret place" because only a couple other people knew where it was. Probably because it was kind of hard to get to.

To get there, Kai had to swim around these rocks that could be difficult to navigate if one wasn't an experienced swimmer. A person could also reach the secret beach by clambering over rocks, but Kai preferred to swim.

But one day, when he was 12 years old, Kai found trash gathered up on the beach. He was just about to swimming, when he saw something lying on the sand. Looking more closely, he notices it was a plastic bag. The only reason it hadn't blown away was the sand trapping it.

Annoyed, Kai picked it up. There was litter on his beach? This was not okay. When he took a quick glance at the rest of his beach, he realised there was more trash, probably swept in from the sea by waves coming ashore.

Walking along the shore, he began picking up every piece of trash he could see. When he was done, Kai trapped it all underneath a rock. He would bring a bag tomorrow.

After swimming for over an hour, he went home. Immediately upon arriving at his house, Kai put a trash bag in his backpack. He just needed to remember to grab it tomorrow before going to his beach. He usually just left his backpack with the lifeguard on duty when he went out on the water.

The next day, there was even more trash on the shore. With both the debris from yesterday and today, almost half of the bag was filled.

Even though Kai picked up the trash that gathered on the beach every day, it soon became too much for one person to do. At dinner that night, he told his parents about it.

After thinking about the situation for a minute, his father asked him, "What do you want to do about it?"

Smiling, Kai said, "I think I have an idea."

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A fortnight and a lot of hard work later, close to 50 volunteers were scouring both Kai's "secret place" and the main beach for trash.

For now, both shores would be clear of trash, but it was by no means a permanent solution. That was a problem for another day though.