By Elias Marat | The Mind Unleashed
With much of the world being plunged into lockdown conditions, nature has been given a much-needed breather in a manner unprecedented in the modern age. And on coastlines all over the globe, the results have been nothing short of miraculous – with sea turtles, whales and other creatures enjoying the benefits of human-free beaches and shorelines.
However, as states across the U.S. start to relax quarantine measures, it appears that we humans are just as uninterested as ever in respecting the planet – and nowhere has this been more clear than in Florida, where beachgoers left an estimated 13,000 pounds of trash strewn across one beach this past weekend, according to The Hill.
Cocoa Beach is a city known for its gorgeous maritime forests and its international surfing competition.
Cocoa beach florida🥺😍 pic.twitter.com/sZlmUehCzh
— han🍓 (@_hanya_m) May 14, 2020
Florida’s beaches, which reopened on April 21, have also been the center of the state’s efforts to revive the state’s floundering tourism industry. However, the massive influx of visitors – said to be equivalent to the number of people who flood the beaches on holidays like the Fourth of July – has led to a huge spike in garbage being carelessly left behind
This has forced authorities to launch a new crack down on litterbugs.
“As restrictions are becoming more relaxed during this pandemic, the City of Cocoa Beach is beginning to see an influx of day-trippers to our beaches, along with piles of unlawfully discarded trash in their wake,” Cocoa Beach Police Department wrote in a statement, adding: “This will not be tolerated.”
The police also stated that they will start “focusing on litter violations in the days and weeks ahead in an effort to educate the public and mitigate this repulsive and disrespectful behavior.”
The massive amounts of litter found on the beach this past weekend come after roughly 6 tons of trash were collected in the prior weekend. Two weekends prior, the same amount – 297 bags of trash weighing about 40 pounds each – were also collected.
