For our first environmental action we hosted a Shoreline Cleanup in Vancouver’s CRAB Park, located in the heart of our Gastown neighborhood. Vancouver Aquarium created the Shoreline Cleanup Program which is an event where community members lead cleanups on our surrounding shorelines. The action is simple, participants head to a beach with a garbage bag, gloves and good intentions and pick up the trash and recyclables from the beaches to prevent the garbage from entering the ocean.
PicThrive hosted its Shoreline Cleanup on Friday the 21st of July. We anticipated that only our team of would participate in the cleanup, but to our utter surprise we had an astoning 19 amazing volunteers join us. Not only did local businesses like MyMayu and the investment firm Bloom Strategies join us in action, but also five young volunteers came to help cleanup. It was refreshing seeing everyone come out for a good cause on a rainy Friday afternoon.
After trekking out to the beach with our large group, the cleanup began! There seemed to be an unlimited amount of cigarette butts, we ended up picking up close to 1000. Other weird items collected from the shore included socks, old chains and 6 needles. The needles we tagged and we had removed by Vancouver Coastal Health for the group’s safety. It was concerning seeing the amount of litter we saw from cigarettes and food wrappers.
Below are some photos from our exciting day.
in Conclusion
Our only hope as a company is that people start doing their part for the planet, by refraining from littering. What you pack in, you must pack out, as it is essential we all work together to reduce the waste on our environment.** 8 million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean each year**, which has created an awful phenomenon called the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. Reducing our own careless littering and picking up the trash found in public spaces can help prevent this monstrous patch from getting bigger. The world will change if we do, so let’s do our part and work together to build a healthier planet by ending littering and cleaning up our parks, shorelines and mountain tops.
Once we’d done our duty and made our beloved beach free from garbage we called it a day and had our new environmental friends over for snacks, brews and games! It was an excellent way to end our week and do our part for the environment.
