Summer volunteering in northern Spain

Picture this: it’s a summer day. You’ve arrived in a new city. Everything you hear, everything you see, everything you feel… is different.

You’ve just finished classes at Instituto Hemingway when you’re told: “This afternoon we’re heading to the beach.”

At the given time and place, you meet the rest of the group, and although you don’t know everyone else yet, you soon realise that we have plenty of things in common, in particular that you are all here for the same reason: volunteering.

We catch the metro, which, aside from the dim lighting of each station, is enveloped in the darkness of the subway tunnels. That is, until it finally comes above ground, at which point you’re struck by Bilbao’s variety. Both an old city with an industrial past and a new city with beautiful houses which become more numerous the closer we get to the coast.

We hop off the metro and within a couple of minutes, we’re at the bay. The supervisor explains to us that this area suffers from a serious environmental problem: on our left is the mouth of the river, in front of us a huge industrial port, and on the right, the marina. It creates an almost perfect horseshoe shape. But of course, this means that anything dumped in the water gets stuck here, along the seawall. So… we grab gloves and tools and head down the stairs to the rocks below.

We’re met with the smell of sea and the sight of vast quantities of washed-up sticks and seaweed, and in amongst it all, the enemy of our day and age: plastic. It’s everywhere, almost like it’s been planted there and watered by the waves. Though it might seem normal in our daily lives, seeing it here… it’s a saddening testimony to the true extent of our consumerism. We find both cigarette butts and lighters, on average around five of the latter per trip. We also come across the odd shoe, which makes you think, ‘How did its owner get home that day?’

We find glass bottles of all shapes and sizes which no one could be bothered to take to a recycling bin after a party. However, the seriousness of this pales when faced with the true test of your patience: microplastics. Most of the time, we don’t know where they’ve come from. So small they’re almost unnoticeable, the worst of them made of polystyrene. This material crumbles so easily that if you’re not careful, you’ll create a greater problem than the one you found.

But that’s the great thing about being part of a group. Between all of us and within a couple of hours of work, the area definitely looks cleaner. Not perfect perhaps but at least you can see a big difference.

The whole time, conversation has been flowing. Technically, on the first day we’re just a group of strangers in a strange place, doing something for the common good that everyone knows they should do but few actually make an effort with.

The afternoon sun is a little tiring, but we can’t stop until the work is done. When our supervisor finally tells us that we’ve done enough for today, we take everything we’ve collected to the nearest dustbins.

It’s a great feeling: to know the working day is done while watching the sun going down over the sea. Now, those who were just people you volunteered with are now your friends. Conversation flows and we chat in all manner of different languages. So ends the first day of our mission to return the sea to its former glory, whether under the bluest of skies or in tempestuous storms, whether fearsome as the wind or golden in the sunset.