Ralph: The trash hunter

On a trip to Costa Rica with his family in 2000, Ralph Groenheijde noticed his son wasn’t picking up shells from the sunkissed beaches, but colored bottle caps. He and his family used the collected caps to create a mosaic of the sun on the sand. Then, they immortalized it with a picture before cleaning up those caps for good. But this experience stuck with Ralph. He’d realized this extent of the planet’s litter problem and spent the next two years looking for ways to motivate people to pay attention and stop littering.

“I call them TrashUres because they become valuable when picked up. If you make people enthusiastic about the litter problem,” Ralph explained, “they will cooperate and will feel good.” Alongside beach clean-ups, Ralph’s organization raises awareness about littering, with workshops, seminars, and even birthday parties.

Ralph believes that “Taking responsibility for the planet is the same as taking responsibility for your home: sometimes you just have to clean the mess.” By combining fun with litter picking, he wants to inspire others to be the change the world needs.

Back at home in the Netherlands, Ralph came across more litter on a local beach. He soon filled six large bags with trash, and used them to recreate a sailing ship on the beach. Before long, children and their parents came along to play with the ship. “We then threw everything in the trash. I posted a picture of the ship on Facebook, and the environmental art organization TrashUre Hunt was born,” Ralph tells us.