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Dive in! Cleaning up underwater garbage and eating more seaweed.
Dear Reader,
You can tell from their name — Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage — that this group of 65‒85-year-old women don’t take themselves too seriously, though they’re very serious about the problem they’re addressing: trash in the ponds on Cape Cod where they swim. Launched by Susan Baur, a retired journalist, author, and psychologist, OLAUG members have excavated everything from golf balls to a robins-egg blue toilet. And it’s no laughing matter. “This is a serious task — you’d have to be able to swim half a mile in 30 minutes,” Susan told a reporter. “You must be prepared to be in the water without touching the bottom for an hour. You need to have a very deep familiarity with the water.”
The 30 women clean up 20 ponds each year, removing more than 100 pounds of trash per pond. What motivates them?
“Some of our members would say, ‘I’m doing this for the environment,’ and some would say, ‘I’m doing this for the adventure, or comradeship,’” Susan said, “but what drives this group is people finding a better way to be happy.”
Dot loves a Climate Champ who incorporates joy into their tasks. Three cheers for the “old ladies” who are cleaning up Cape Cod’s ponds, one toilet at a time.
Swimmingly,
Dot
Read more about how seaweed grows and ways to prepare it in your kitchen.
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