Last week was "Beach Cleaning Week" in Norway, and what better excuse to pack up the kids and head for the beach? I live in an area famous for it's good weather (mind you, that is by Norwegian standards!) and a lot of people come here for their summer holidays. So keeping the beaches clean is important for the cardinal environmental reasons, but it's also important for those who live here.
Sandy bay
Saturday marked the highlight of the week, it being "Beach Cleaning Day". As many as 90 000 volunteers spent the day cleaning beaches, islands, islets and the seafloor all over the country, collecting tonnes of plastic and other garbage. Norway is a distinctly maritime nation, and despite it being a very small country in terms of land, its coastline measures 100 915 kilometers, second in the world only surpassed by Canada. So the ocean is, and always has been, of paramount importance to the Norwegians.
To partake in this national effort to clean our beaches, we headed for a local beach named Eftang. Eftang lies in an area rich in Viking culture, and its name is derived from the two old Norwegian words for swan and inlet - giving it the beautiful name Swan Inlet. We didn't see any swans on this particular day, but perhaps there were many of them here in the past.
Eftang - or Swan Inlet as it was known by the Vikings
My kids are at that age when horizons broadens and they start taking in what is actually happening in the world. Environmental issues are discussed in school and at home, but there's nothing like a hands-on experience, seeing the vast amounts of plastic that litter our shoreline first hand.
Heading for the beach
Busy cleaning the beach
Taking a break
There is just SO much litter
We only covered a short stretch of the beach, but we managed to fill 5 big bags of plastic. I think this effort showed us all how much plastic there really is in the ocean and although I hope this will become an annual event for our family, it's important to remember that ANY DAY CAN BE BEACH CLEANING DAY.
