Sennan Marble beach is famous for iconic white marble stones spread over along the coast for 1kilometer. This artificial beach located in Sennnan city, which is the vicinity of Hannan city, is well-known as a tourist destination. In summer and even in the winter season, if the weather is lovely, many families and couples often visit this fabulous beach on weekends. Yesterday, 23 employees of Taishoboseki, by and large, including members of the SDGs Committee, participated in a cleanup activity of this long beach. In short, we did trash-picking up.

We distinguished the trash from the condition of whether or not it exists in nature. For instance, those twigs may be dropped on the ground by birds or maybe washed in from the sea.

On the other hand, both pieces of bamboo and a part of rectangular lumber thrown away by the human. Or, it is easy to guess that this rubbish is floating there as humans throw them out on the beach.

Walking the coast, we found shells and tiny crabs too. When we took a closer look at them, those were hard clams and oyster shells. There is no doubt that they do not live on the coast. To point critical issues out, those pieces of lumbers and shells will return to nature after all, while it would take several decades or hundreds of years for most thrown away plastic wastes to return to nature.

We found a tiny fragment of plastics too. It looked like a fragment of the toy. Possibly, a person who left this trash may have given up collecting it because it was scattered. This cautious situation forced me to imagine the following worst scenarios. “Wait, what if birds eat plastic wastes? What if they are carried away by the waves and fishes eat them?” There were cigarette wastes as well. Those were thrown away among white marbles to being covered up.
Visitors did throw plastic bags away there. They would not have thrown them away if they were their recycled bags.

The others were plastic bottles, empty cans, and empty bottles, the left of fireworks.

The every-single waste left in Sennan Marble Beach would not be having thrown by visitors who came there to enjoy the beach.

However, first and foremost, everyone who loves this beach should not leave any tiny waste there for them to enjoy their beloved beach next time.

After the cleanup activity, one of our employees said the following comment, “I will never throw my trash away.  It was extremely exhausting to clean up there, but it was fun!”
Indeed, we got him/ her.  He/ she, a person who responded with these comments, is the last person to throw wastes away as he/she proactively participated in this cleanup activity.
Another employee replied, “Then, I appreciate it if you could join this activity again.”  He/ she said, “Ummm, fine.  Again?  Can’t be helped.”
These conversations let me feel somehow heartwarming emotions by sensing Taishobo-ism.
By Ms. Sakaguchi, a member of SDGs committee