Coming to the beach for a visit with your children? Remember the sunscreen, flip flops, sand bucket, shovel and your plastic gloves. Enjoy your time on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, playing in the waves and making castles in the sand.
Before returning home for the day, be sure you follow the rules of Leave Only Footprints. The new initiative requires beachgoers to collect and remove what they bring to the beach. This includes beach tents, beach chairs, rafts, toys and other gear. Holes deeper than 12 inches must be filled in, and all trash should be collected and disposed of.
After clearing the area you claimed, it’s time to take your trash troop on the hunt for treasures of the trashy kind, including bags, bottles, plastic six-pack rings and cigarette butts. You’re looking for anything that doesn’t belong on the beach naturally. Explain to your young ones that trash can endanger the birds, the sea turtles and the fish.
Materials such as glass bottles may never dissolve and it can take a lot of time – sometimes hundreds of years – for materials such as disposable diapers to disintegrate.
Teaching children what does belong at the beach is as important as teaching them what does not belong there. Sea oats, the slender fronds that resemble wheat, serve an important role as anchors for the dunes that guard our beaches. The Alabama Gulf Coast is lucky to be a host for endangered and protected species such as the Alabama beach mouse, sea turtles and the red-cockaded woodpecker. Other plant and animal life on the beach are equally important to the health 
and wellness of our coast and need to be left alone.
Share your photos from your trashy treasure hunt and ideas for how others can Leave Only Footprints.
Interested in doing more for the Alabama Gulf Coast? Join volunteers at the 29th Annual Coastal Cleanup Sept. 17, 2016.
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