Not the Best Beach Ever

When you get to a seaside resort the first thing you want to do is go and see the beach and the beauty of the ocean beyond. Well, when we got to the beach last week we were greeted with a locked gate and this sign:

Of course the impact is greater if you can actually read the sign, so I'll help. It says something like* "Its forbidden to swim or walk in the beach area, beach is oily." One guy told me it was actually a vegetable oil spill but he was dead wrong. The beach smelled worse than a truck stop. It was oilier smelling than the "men's room" at a truck and tractor pull.

The next day while the tide was out, we did go out and walk a bit and saw this kind of stuff.
From a distance I thought it was a bunch of beer bottles washed ashore but they were mostly plastic bottles covered in oil. We've been a few places, especially mangrove swamps, that are just full of trash. For some reason lots of people still believe rivers and the sea clean themselves. I guess its because you throw your trash in the sea and the tide takes it away. What they don't see is the tide washing it back on land a few miles up the coast for their neighbors to deal with.

Now obviously this is not just an Asian problem. Heaven only knows how many beer bottles will be sunk to the bottom of US lakes by fishermen and skiers this weekend alone. But it feels a lot different when you see it all lined up at where the tide left it.
Sort of remind me of this from when I was a kid:

*A helpful note regarding translation or other things that require approximation: Say "it goes a little something like this" and then if anyone says you are wrong you can always fall back and reply, "I said it was something like that. Not exactly that. Lighten up!" Also that phrase is good if you are a Beastie Boy.