It’s never too late to do our part. At any age and at any time in life, there is always time to start doing good. Pat Smith is a 70-year-old english lady who in late 2017 decided to prove this very point by setting herself an important goal: every week she would go out and clean up a beach.
The idea came to her after watching a documentary on our planet’s pollution. Pat was so stricken by what she saw that she felt compelled to spring into action.
And so she did: every week for a year, Pat dedicated herself to cleaning as many as 52 beaches with incredible results, regardless of the limitiations her age might impose. Armed with bin bags, rubber gloves and a litter picker, she travelled without fail from one end of the southwest of England to the other, including on Christmas Day.
During her beach cleans, Pat was sometimes mistaken for doing community service, she said, adding: “People don’t understand I’ve been doing this voluntarily. We should all take responsibility for picking up the litter, as well as ensuring we don’t drop litter in the first place.”
Her gesture gradually became popular throughout Cornwall and Devon. In finding out what she was doing, people and associations alike joined her in her cause. It was then that she decided to launch “The Final Straw“, a campaign adedicated to freeing all beaches in Cornwall from pollution. In particular, The Final Straw points to the decrease in pollution caused by plastic straws.
“I started the Final Straw campaign with the aim of encouraging individuals to refuse plastic straws when offered and businesses to join us and commit to not provide any other straws other than paper ones. Using this as an entry level on the road to raising awareness of the issue of single use plastic pollution to the general public, I feel excited and enthusiastic about encouraging behaviour change in a wider group of people than my fellow environment embracing counterparts.”
Pat did not stop last year, and on weekends she still goes on beach cleaning missions: “Doing 52 beach cleans in 2018 was my New Year’s Resolution and it’s finally done. I won’t stop as our beaches need me”. The ever-smiling 70-year-old lady shows us all how each of us can act now and strongly contribute to the safeguard our planet.
