Easter Eggs At The Beach

Easter Egg Hunts are a fun and exciting time for both kids and adults. In my family, I’ve always hosted Easter and when the kids were young, I did the annual Easter Egg Hunt.. that was 30+ years ago and wow how much has changed in the last 30 years, like the growth of plastic and plastic pollution.

Many destination places such as Belmont Park run an annual Easter Egg hunt. These events release thousands of plastic Easter Eggs holding plastic prizes and plastic encased candy are strewn all over the picnic and beach areas. ‘Belmont Park states: ‘The egg hunts on the beach and in the park will nest 20,000+ fun-filled eggs and a limited supply of “Golden Eggs”

I will guarantee you that half of those 20,000 eggs will end up in the ocean. I know, I personally have picked up over 300 in one day, but they just keep on giving or hatching, as these plastic eggs will continually wash up in the tide all year long.

We know kids, they are jacked up and away they go opening and throwing out hundreds of thousands of pieces of plastic, which eventually end up in the ocean. Parents don’t seem to care.

The lawn, parking lots, sand, boardwalk, plants are strewn with plastic and tin foil packaging.

The 20 trashcans in Belmont Park all look like this and picked over by SeaGulls and Rats.

Did you know that Plastic Easter Eggs are not recyclable, and some have been shown to contain lead paint and the harmful chemical BPA… How do you like them green eggs?

Hundreds are taken out to the beach and left there to be washed out to sea.

It is not just Belmont Park:

• Newport Beach also runs an Easter Egg hunt with only 6,000 plastic Easter Eggs. Capitola Village has an Easter Egg Hunt on the beach! Kids 12 and under can hunt for candy-filled eggs hidden in the sand.
• 1990: In combing 2,946 miles of shoreline nationwide, volunteers recovered 3 million pieces of garbage, including items as varied as bottle caps, lobster traps, fast-food wrappers, syringes, Easter eggs and several American flags. (UPI) 
• 2017: New Jersey: Three artificial Christmas trees (two of them decorated); a plastic holiday wreath; three plastic flowers and a plastic Easter egg also were plucked from the shore.
• 2017: shocked at the amount of trash and debris stretching from the steps of the boardwalk to the tide line. There were hundreds of broken pieces of plastic Easter eggs left over from the hunt weeks ago. Cape May Herald 

What can you do without spoiling the fun for kids?

• Consider an Eco-Easter-Egg: Eco Eggs 
• Make your own felted Easter Eggs.
• Use Wooden Easter Eggs
• Knit Easter Eggs.
• Use recycled paper prizes for various items.
• Buy used easter eggs from Secondhand stores.
• Use real eggs instead of plastic

The worst or best part of this, I am not going to be here for 10 days during this time. 10 Days of Plastic Easter Eggs on the beach. 10 Days of Spring Break. 10 Days of chocolate wrappers on the beach. 10 Days of the trashiest beach days of the year. I am worried, Who is going to pick up the beach? Who is going to rescue textiles and beach toys? Who is going to monitor and report back to the powers that be?

On the other hand, it will be a relief and a needed break, as I get a little  obsessive about beach trash.

What to do with Old Easter Eggs

• Keep and reuse for next year
• Donate your used Easter Eggs donate them
• Reuse them in crafts – see this article from Pop Sugar for more ideas.