Cleanup action on the beach of a Plastic Beach

The film "Plastic Soup" by Chris Jordan shows images of a clean-up operation on the beach of a plastic beach in the Pacific:

Along the coast, plastic and Styrofoam accounted for over 75 % of the litter washed up between 2000 and 2006 (source: "Marine Beach Litter Monitoring" by the international marine protection agency OSPAR).

On beaches used for tourism, trash is not only an environmental problem, but also an aesthetic one. Which tourist likes to lie down with his beach towel next to a pile of plastic waste? High costs are incurred here for cleaning the tourist beaches. For example, on the German North Sea island of Norderney, the beaches have to be cleaned continuously with a special vehicle or by hand at the start of the season.

Cleaning beaches from plastic waste again and again may seem like a Sisyphean task, but every effort counts. The collected plastic then has to be recycled in a sensible way. If the flow of newly added plastic were to decrease, the effect of the cleanup campaigns would of course be even more gratifying.