NAHANTÂ —Â There’s nothing like trying to scare a kid with the image of a choking turtle to get them to recycle.Â
Holding a popped latex balloon and its accompanying ribbon, Safer Waters in Massachusetts President Vi Patek told an audience of 30 children in the Nahant Recreation Department Park League that the leftover party favor was “the most dangerous thing on the beach” for animals and advised them against letting the balloons go.
“Turtles think they are jellyfish and they eat them,” explained Patek. “And then it stays in their belly and they die.”
For their second year presenting a program on cleaner beaches for Nahant Recreation, Patek and other SWIM volunteers put on a skit to show the kids how they can do their part to have a cleaner, safer ocean for both children and animals. Elementary science teacher Adam Walker and SWIM volunteer ML Cort become “Bobbie the Beachcomber” and “Connie the Cormorant” to show how “the power of recycling” can save birds, fish and other marine animals from digesting, choking on or getting tangled in the trash that can end up on a beach. Walker donned a vest of recycling knowledge to learn the basics of recycling to save “Connie’s” friends.
“They understand when it’s physical,” said Patek about the highly animated skit, which ran about 15 minutes long.
“It’s crazy and wacky, and that’s what you need to get the kids’ attention,” said park program Director Sue Rosa. She said she thought if any of the kids remember to pick up popped balloons at the beach, the lesson was successful.
The skit was part of SWIM’s week-long event on recycling. On Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., scientists from Northeastern University’s Marine Science Center will bring a touch tank to the Flash Road Playground to learn about the recycling numbers on the bottoms of plastic items. On Friday at the same time, the kids will decorate a free cloth shopping bag with “recycling art,” and there will be a logo drawing contest for stickers to label trash barrels for recycling.
If the kids were shocked by the image of animals tangled in plastic, they didn’t let on. Some ran off to play basketball, but a big group gathered around local artist Heather Goodwin’s table to paint “scales” for a large sea serpent sculpture as part of their project for the second annual 01908 Art Gala on the Island.
But for some, the skit left an impression that SWIM was hoping for. As she painted her scales a bright green color, park participant Skye Bascon, 11, said she thought the skit was “a good idea to help little kids recycle more often.”
Bascon said when she’s at the beach lying on her towel, she usually doesn’t want to get up to clean up her trash. “But then I usually do because of basically what they said — it harms the animals, and it’s their ocean.”
