i've just spent three weeks on some of the most gorgeous beaches in the continental US: olympic national park in washington state. the reason i was there? to collect 'marine debris' - aka beach garbage. volunteers during the summer collected the debris (everything from ropes, boat floats, a giant 40 gallon plastic barrel that once held greek olives - complete with greek writing, lots of tires...) into big caches. piles of, often, over 40 bags. the crew i was working on was hired to go to these caches and carry them out. we collected over a ton (2,250 lbs) of trash. it was some of the hardest physical work i've ever done: carrying 50lbs up muddy trails, getting pushed off the beach by storm surges and having to bushwhack through berry pushes taller than we were...it rained every day. it was so satisfying, though, to know how important the work we were doing was....to have those beaches clean again...