A South Florida man is working hard to keep our beaches and parks clean. Over the last eight years he’s picked up more than 30,000 pounds of trash, all on his own.
“Obviously I love the mangroves, I spend a lot of time here, the hardwood hammocks, the Everglades, the back dunes,” environmentalist Andrew Otazo said.
Otazo said in spending his time outdoors, he realized how much garbage was lining our coastlines.
“Frustration that every time I would come into this environment, I would see more and more trash and nothing was being done about it,” Otazo said.
What started as a hobby turned into a mission
So, he did something about it. He started picking it up in his free time. Otazo said the more time he spent working in these ecosystems, the more he fell in love with the mission.
“I actually oddly get very excited when I see a very big piece of trash because it’s like a challenge to take it out,” he said.
Amidst all that trash, he said there have been some wild finds.
“There’s a quinceañera dress, there’s a VR headset. There’s this 220-pound tractor trailer tire I picked up last week,” Otazo said.
He said while he has no plans to stop, stopping the garbage from winding up here is the real goal.
“The only way that this is ever going to change is if we stop the trash, this trash flow at its source. Otherwise I’m going to be out here for the rest of my life and every high tide will just bring more trash,” he said.
