Ocean Conservancy: International Coastal Clean Up Day

Thomas Pickard / Aurora Photos

Earlier this month I wrote a blog post titled Southern Thailand Photo Assignment. At the time I couldn’t divulge the client or even what the shoot was about. Today though I can.

The client was Ocean Conservancy and the job was to document the International Coastal Clean up Day in Thailand. The job was arranged through the assignment division of Aurora Photos, Aurora Select. Ocean Conservancy teamed up with Aurora to provide 25 photographers around the globe to document the clean up as it happened.

It was a great job, in part because as a surfer and sea kayaker I am passionate about the health of our oceans. Having spent a great deal of my life in and around the water, it breaks my heart to see so much rubbish dumped in our oceans and waterways. Sometimes I can’t help but think that there are too many people with an ‘out of sight, out of mind attitude’ in this world.

What really surprised me at the Thailand clean up, was just how much tiny plastic was pulled off the beach we were at. A vast majority of it was plastic bottle tops – the perfect size for a turtle to mistake for food and to swallow.

To learn more about the current state of our oceans, I encourage you to have a look at some of the photos from the International Coastal Clean Up Day that was on Saturday the 19th September.

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