Each year, during spring break, people all around the world take part in raging parties. A few of the most popular destinations include Florida, California, and Mexico. While individuals, a majority of them students, party all night to relieve themselves from stress, the aftermath of it all is ugly and only leaves beaches stressed.

As the flashing lights fade and the music stops, a wave of empty beer cans, old cigarettes, plastic wrappers and red solo cups washes over the discolored and damaged sand. Each year, hundreds and hundreds of bags of trash in the U.S. are collected in the outcome of these parties.

Apart from all this trash ruining the aesthetic beaches, much of this waste travels to our oceans and threatens marine life. We’ve all seen those pictures of various types of plastics found on animals, sometimes on their fins and other times permanently lodged in their heads.

Partygoers’ carelessness of our ecosystem has not helped in the attempt to slow down the deterioration of our beaches. Across the world, we have garbage islands floating around in our oceans, mainly comprised of plastics that are the size of India, Europe, and Mexico combined!

We can no longer stand for the negligence of our beaches, if we want future generations to continue to inhabit this earth, we need to take action now. Small things like picking up your trash can make a big difference somewhere else- I’m sure our aquatic friends would greatly thank us at the very least.

Once again, this is your PSA: Don’t be a jerk, our ecosystem is sensitive and on the verge of losing it. Take care of her and be a responsible human being, pick up after yourself!