When Doing Good Feels Futile
I envisioned cleaning a dirty beach and leaving crystal clear waters behind.
But there was no way we were going to make a dent in this beach. It was too much. It was too much plastic.
Many of you know that our family is half Dominican. One of the fun parts of having that family dynamic is that we have plenty of opportunities to go back to the island and explore with our kids.
We just spent the month of April in the Dominican, and this time as I was preparing our itinerary I purposely sought out locals doing incredible things on the island that I wanted to document. In my search I came upon Michaela and Jirka and their IG account Los Verderos.
This couple is taking the Dominican by storm and shedding a light on the horrible state of many of the coastlines in the DR. The average Punta Cana tourist would have no idea, but A LOT of the Dominican beaches, especially those that border the capital of Santo Domingo, are completely covered in garbage. It’s a sad, disgusting reality, but it is true.
As soon as I heard Los Verdederos were organizing a series of beach cleanups across the island I signed us up. And so it was at 7am on a Saturday Ale, the kids and I headed down to the coast of Santo Domingo to pick up garbage.
When we arrived, the beach was already packed with people and some garbage bags had already been collected. After a quick orientation we headed down to the shore to join everyone else.
When I tell you I didn’t know what to do with the level of garbage we found, I am not exaggerating. I knew there would be a lot of garbage but I truly couldn’t fathom this. I stood on what was supposed to be a sandy shore but I couldn’t see the sand. Instead I was ankle deep in nearly a foot of plastic, and all my excitement left my body. I felt completely defeated and I hadn’t picked up a single piece of garbage yet.
I thought this whole experience was going to be a great example for my kids. We would put in some good ol' hard work and determination and have a real life lesson of “how when people come together to work towards something, things change for the better.” I envisioned coming to a dirty beach and leaving behind crystal clear waters when we left.
Instead I felt complete dejection. There was no way we were ever going to make a dent in this beach. It was too much. It was too much plastic. I helped pick up some stuff, my kids filled bags, but when I moved to the edge of the beach and shot the scene from a distance I felt more and more helpless. As these amazing workers picked up bottle caps and foam, hairbrushes and shoes, the waves relentlessly tossed more plastic onto the shore, almost like an affront to the efforts of these volunteers.
It truly felt useless.
Somehow miraculously by the time the volunteer crew left that day they had actually gathered over 4005 lbs of garbage and the entire sidewalk was covered in mounds of bags ready to be collected. But it was still just a drop in the bucket. Sadly that beach, and so many others, are suffocating with plastic.
As is often the case with these kinds of social issues, it’s not usually the people who have to live in this disgusting state who are the real cause of the problem. The issue more often stems from other people whose actions (or disregard) really affect people downstream….pardon the pun.
That’s the case with this beach because it sits at the the mouth of a major river which flows into this bay, and that river carries garbage from upstream. Then the currents in the bay push the garbage back onto this shore.
As I’ve reflected on this project since April, the work of these amazing volunteers, and my own helplessness to fix the problem, I have to ask myself, what is it that I CAN accomplish? I’ve come to the conclusion that I can have the biggest impact by going out of my way to stop supporting plastic. Of course it’s not always possible, but here is a radical thought; what if I never purchased any new plastic? What if we only thrifted Tupperware or plastic toys? What if we chose the brands packed in glass instead of plastic, even if they cost more?
I’ve already made many of these lifestyle shifts, and sometimes it feels like it won’t make any difference. But I know that if we don’t significantly reduce plastic from our lifestyles, it will choke us out. My hope is that these images help you feel the weight of this problem so you make shifts in your home too.
Check out Verdederos
Next time you're in the Dominican and want to lend a hand to the next beach cleanup, give them a follow to stay on top of the schedule!
