It used to be that Googling “plastic beach” would issue forth pages of cosmetic surgeon listings in Newport, La Jolla and Miami. More and more, however, the term “plastic beach” is being used to describe once idyllic white sand beaches turned magnetic trash heaps for plastic flotsam. One such beach is Kamilo Beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. Bear in mind: Kamilo Beach is not special. It is hardly one of a kind. There are thousands of such plastic beaches across the globe, but today I am focusing on one: Kamilo Beach.

Perfect spot for laying out. http://www.flickr.com/photos/40175771@N00/2241995893/

As on many beaches, plastic is the new sea glass at Kamilo. Lovers can walk hand in hand beach-combing for condoms, bottles of bleach, plastic spoons, pieces of toys and gadgets and packaging that somebody somewhere once had to have. Plastic and polystyrene pellets are plentiful, the main building blocks from which most of our plastic is moulded. A few millimeters in diameter, these teeny pellets have been nicknamed “mermaid tears,” a romantic name for a nasty reality.

Located at the southern tip of the Big Island, Kamilo Beach is exposed to constant trade winds blowing directly on-shore, bringing with it debris from all over the Pacific rim. For this reason, the beach used to be a place where Native Hawaiians came to find logs for their canoes, or, to be more macabre, a place they went to find the bodies of those lost at sea. Everything washes ashore at Kamilo, and now this once beautiful white sand and driftwood beach is a foot deep in plastic jetsam.

And so it would seem that there is a new kind of sand: plastic, and a new kind of beach: toxic. A beach comprised of styrofoam and bits of fishing lures, tiny bits of a world reliant on plastic. What does one do, then, when the term plastic beach no longer applies to cosmetic surgery but to our very coastline? What does one do when Kamilo Beach is just one of thousands? What does one do with plastic bottles and tupperware, freezer bags, gallons of milk, credit cards, razors, flip flops, detergent, straws, soap, pens, toys, trash bags, computer parts, phones, eyeglasses, life?

Care for a stroll? http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1293/891569020_e73d985066.jpg

Andy Warhol once said, “Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.” Of course he was talking about Hollywood, but nowadays he could have been talking about anywhere, anybody. As a culture, we have become a petroleum-based mix of monomers that become polymers, to which additional chemicals are added for suppleness. Ask anyone for a global problem and you will most likely hear about AIDS or poverty, climate crisis–all very legitimate problems, but it is less likely you will hear about mermaid’s tears. And yet here we are: less than 5% of the world’s plastics are recycled and yet more and more is being produced. And bought.

Perhaps this post is too political for a blog about beaches. Perhaps I ought to bring it back to Kamilo, or somewhere prettier, a beach that is sandier maybe. Sadly it’s getting difficult to write about beaches without touching on the environment. Without knowing that somehow I need to buy less, use less, recycle more, think more. Because when I comb most beaches these days I think of one word, just one word: plastics. There’s a great future in plastics, that is, if we find a way to stop using them altogether. And if we do, perhaps one day Kamilo will be a beach filled with driftwood again, even the odd bloated carcass of someone lost at sea, a vast improvement on a foot deep heap of cigarette lighters and blister packs.