Reporters Zhang Jiansong, Li Haiwei and Ding Ting

Discarded plastic bottles and bags, packaging foam, worn-out leather shoes, ropes, clothes, gloves, cigarette butts, rubber tires... The reeds on the beach are full of garbage of all sizes. Pick up the garbage on the surface and turn it over. There is another layer of garbage underneath, which is shocking.

This is the real scene that reporters saw on the muddy beach on the eve of World Oceans Day on June 8, following the beach cleaning activity of Shanghai Rendu Ocean Public Welfare Development Center. The mighty Huangpu River flows into the Yangtze River estuary here. Part of the garbage carried in the river water was intercepted by the reeds on the beach, and it accumulated over time. Since 2007, Rendu Ocean has often organized volunteers to come here to pick up garbage, and initiated the establishment of the China Beach Garbage Monitoring Network, and published beach garbage reports every year. They are called the modern "Ocean Yugong".

Once the garbage enters the sea, it can never be picked up again

45-year-old Liu Yonglong has gray hair. As the founder of Rendu Ocean, he and his friends planned activities, recruited volunteers, rented vehicles, and contacted garbage trucks. What touched them was that since there was no financial support for this event, the volunteers had to pay for their own transportation and set off early in the morning on the weekend, but there was still a full car of people.

Born in Tongxin County, Ningxia, Liu Yonglong has been yearning for the blue sea since he was a child. After graduating from Fudan University in 1997, he went to work in a state-owned enterprise in Shanghai. Twelve years ago, by chance, he organized a beach cleaning activity for the first time, and he could never let it go since then. He even resigned from his middle-level position in a state-owned enterprise and devoted himself to the work of Rendu Ocean full-time, devoting all his efforts to promoting marine environmental protection.

"Many people say I'm stupid, there's no end to the garbage on the beach. But what can we do in the face of so much garbage? Can we really stop the overwhelming use of disposable plastics? Can we really reduce the mountains of plastic packaging?" Liu Yonglong said, "Maybe, what we can do is to pick up and dispose of the garbage before it enters the sea. Once the garbage enters the sea, it can never be picked up again."

"The benevolent love others, and save others and save themselves." At present, Liu Yonglong has gathered more than a dozen like-minded Rendu partners around him. As of the end of 2018, they have organized a total of 217 beach cleaning operations in Shanghai alone, recruited more than 10,000 volunteers to participate, and cleaned up a total of 27 tons of beach garbage.

"I thought the beach cleaning activity was as romantic and simple as going to the beach to blow the sea breeze and pick up some scattered garbage. I didn't expect there was so much garbage. More than 20 people picked up more than 300 kilograms of garbage in less than an hour." Mu Huilan, who participated in the beach cleaning activity for the first time, told reporters. "However, the beach seems to have not changed at all. At a glance, there is still so much garbage. I really want to call for a national garbage collection campaign, so that everyone can pick up the garbage around them." "In fact, as long as we carry forward the spirit of Yugong moving mountains and mobilize social forces, everyone will pick up the garbage around them, and the garbage will definitely be picked up." Liu Yonglong introduced that the elderly couple Cai Jiajian from Xiangzhi Town, Shishi City, Fujian Province, are such an admirable "Ocean Yugong". In the fall of 2014, Liu Yonglong took the opportunity of a business trip to visit Mr. Cai and saw that the local beach was still very dirty, the sand was black, and there were bricks and stones everywhere. Later, they launched a volunteer association to mobilize social forces to pick up garbage on the beach together. Three years later, the beach is completely different, and the familiar white sand beach of childhood is back. Every inch of the beach needs people's joint protection. Protecting the ocean is not the power of one person, nor the power of one team. From the mouth of the Yalu River to the mouth of the Beilun River, China has 18,000 kilometers of mainland coastline, and every inch of the beach needs people's joint protection. In 2014, the Shanghai Rendu Ocean Public Welfare Development Center and the Shenzhen Mangrove Wetland Protection Foundation jointly launched the "Protecting the Coastline-Scientific Research Monitoring Project".

They collaborated with more than 30 environmental protection agencies in China to carry out beach garbage monitoring in coastal areas of China. By setting up monitoring sections and regular fixed-point sampling methods, the type, quantity and quality data of beach garbage are collected, and the data are summarized and analyzed to publish a beach garbage report.

According to Liu Yonglong, as of now, the "Protecting the Coastline" project has established 55 beach garbage monitoring and cleaning points in 35 coastal cities in China.

According to statistics over the years, the largest amount of garbage on the beach is foam plastic garbage, especially polystyrene foam plastic garbage, which accounts for more than half of all garbage. These plastic garbage are easily broken into fragments or granules in the ocean and beach environment, making it difficult to clean up.

Analysis based on the main garbage categories ranked by quantity: catering, fast-moving consumer goods and packaging industries dominated by foam plastics have developed rapidly in recent years, and the imperfect garbage cleaning and management system has had a direct impact on the formation of garbage on Chinese beaches.

From a global perspective, marine garbage pollution has become one of the most pressing global challenges facing mankind. Experts believe that the harm of marine garbage is mainly manifested in three aspects:

First, it pollutes the marine environment and destroys the marine ecosystem. Marine garbage is easily swallowed by marine organisms, damaging internal organs, blocking the intestines, and even causing animals to suffocate and die. Scientists have found plastic garbage in the internal organs of many marine organisms (such as seabirds, marine fish, and sea turtles). Some seabirds and marine fish also like plastic particles of specific colors and shapes and often eat them by mistake. Some marine garbage, such as old fishing nets, can easily entangle large marine mammals, causing "ghost fishing" and posing a fatal threat to fragile marine ecosystems such as submarine corals.

Second, it accelerates the migration of marine species and leads to the spread of aggressive alien species. Floating garbage is the most common "sea porter" and has become a carrier for the long-distance migration of many marine organisms, which has more than doubled the chance of organisms being rafted, and also provides a path for the invasion of alien species. Existing studies have shown that many animals use marine garbage as a "mobile home", especially mollusks such as bryozoans, barnacles, polychaetes, and hydrozoans. There are as many as 387 groups of marine organisms (including microorganisms, seaweed and invertebrates) that have been recorded to migrate with garbage as a carrier.

Third, it endangers human health through the food chain. Existing studies have shown that marine garbage, especially microplastics, can absorb chemicals from them after being accidentally eaten by marine organisms such as marine fish, seabirds, and turtles, and thus enter the food chain; potentially toxic chemicals (such as polychlorinated biphenyls) released by plastic degradation can also enter the bodies of marine organisms after entering seawater, and transfer to fluids or tissues, increasing the possibility of transmission through the food chain. At present, polychlorinated biphenyls have been increasingly detected in the internal organs and tissues of marine organisms.

We are all "islanders" on the earth, and we cannot let the ocean become a garbage dump

On June 5, World Environment Day, an art and science exhibition themed "Plastic Age: Elegy of Albatross" was held at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. Some garbage picked up by Rendu Ocean volunteers on the beach also appeared at the exhibition.

The exhibition also anthropomorphically displayed "A Letter to Humanity" by the albatross on Midway Island in the Pacific. It turns out that the large amount of marine plastic garbage created by humans is bringing a serious disaster to the albatross family. Because they have no ability to distinguish between plastic and food, albatross parents go out to sea every day to find food, and raise their offspring with great difficulty, but they often find plastic garbage for their babies. They watched their children slowly and painfully die from eating plastic by mistake.

In 2015, this tragic scene on Midway Island was photographed by American photographer Chris Jordan. The stomachs of the little albatrosses that died were filled with bottle caps, lighters, children's toys, combs, toothbrushes... The shocking photos of "Midway Island" shocked the world and deeply shocked Shanghai young artist Yuan Long. He felt that as an artist, he had the responsibility to use art to call on society to pay attention to marine environmental protection.

With the support of Shanghai Aurora Education Development Foundation, Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, Alxa SEE East China Center and other institutions, Yuan Long invited six Chinese and foreign artists including Chris Jordan, Ma Liang, Lu Dan, Chen Wuwei, Gao Hai and Cai Xingguang to jointly launch the "Plastic Age: Elegy for Albatrosses" art and science exhibition.

The two-month exhibition will show the public the severe situation of current marine pollution through photography, painting, installation, video, document, interaction, activities and other forms, enhance the public's environmental awareness, call on the whole society to change the excessive consumption of plastic products, change the disposable lifestyle, and control the harm of plastic products to the marine ecology and even human beings from the source.

The exhibition also set up interactive areas such as "Plastic Reduction Declaration Wall", "Garbage Classification Wall" and "Plastic Reduction Sentence Garden", and many visitors actively left messages. One visitor left a message saying: "Humans have always been accustomed to looking at the ocean from the perspective of land. But if we look at the land from the perspective of the ocean, we will find that all the land on the earth is an island in the ocean, and we are all islanders on the earth. Looking at the earth from a different perspective, we will find that the land we stand on is so limited and so fragile. What reason do we have not to cherish the earth and protect the ocean?"

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