Beach Sweep: A Sociological Analysis

Mahatma Ghandi once said, “It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.” My Sociology 101 class recently provided me with the opportunity to go out and do the “right thing”, which in this case, was volunteering for the benefit of my community. I chose to participate in the Beach Sweep which was organized by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources on September 19th. Although at first it may seem unlikely, the three sociological theories can …show more content…
Along with tourism comes thousands of jobs nearly in every industry imaginable--shopping, dining, fishing etc. This is where the Structural Functional theory can be applied. With every cigarette butt or piece of plastic I collect from the sand, it creates the desire for someone to want to come sunbathe by the sea. This out-of-state visitor won’t just want to sit on the beach all day, they’ll want to stay in a hotel, buy souvenirs, eat out, maybe tour Broadway at the Beach, possibly even see a movie--they are on vacation after all. And all of those places need employees in order to serve the vacationers. Those employees form the community, and just like the tourists, most are transplants that were tempted by the ocean and the many jobs that it creates. And because there is an ever growing community, the need for schools and houses and hospitals and places of worship and grocery stores is always growing as well. But this only happens if our greatest natural resource stays cleaned and well maintained. In a paradoxical turn of events, all of these people create trash, and litter and destroy the beautiful places they came for in the first place. This is why beach sweeps like the one I participated in are so important. This an example of how totally interconnected our society is, as described in the Structural Functional theory. It takes every little pieces working …show more content…
I’ve been cleaning up the beach since I was ten, always bringing a trash bag along with my buckets and shovels. It was nice to be a part of an organized event and to work with other people who share the same love for the ocean and care about the health of the beach as much as I do. We walked from 67th to 82nd avenue which at first, I thought it was going to be an overwhelming amount of walking, but it really wasn’t that bad and overall I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Even though what we did that day did have some immediate effect, the preponderant impact and fruit will take longer to achieve. But I know that every time, I see a new neighborhood or a new school or even a new hotel being built around this area, I’ll know I preformed a small act that contributed to its creation. And after overcoming my skepticism, I discovered how sociological theory can be applied to almost every part of human life, even cleaning up trash on the