As Nic Mostyn stitched his natty one-and-a-half-year-old board shorts back to life, he reflected on the movement he helped found.
Mostyn, a UF civil engineering junior and the treasurer of UF Surf Club, helped start a social media campaign called #unlitter with Surf Club member Sabina Osman, a UF sustainability studies senior. Osman, 21, said the campaign is about respecting Mother Earth.
The idea for the campaign began in March while Osman was aboard her friend’s boat off the coast of Miami. She noticed a pile of trash floating on the water and said, “We need to unlitter the planet.”
The word caught the group’s attention. The decision to turn the word into something bigger was instant, and the #unlitter Facebook page went active that same day. Currently, 275 people have liked the page and 885 follow it on Instagram. They also used the phrase on their Homecoming float.
“I just realized that the word had power,” Osman said.
Initially, the group advocated for beachgoers to pick up two pieces of trash each beach visit, but the results were disappointing, Osman said. To keep the movement going, Osman decided to be less rigid with what they asked of supporters.
“I had given up, and the word just came back organically,” said Osman.
By May, Mostyn said members of the surfing community in Gainesville were using and spreading the word.
“People just chilling on the beach didn’t want to make a commitment,” Osman said. “So we changed it from being an obligation to being more of a vibe.”
Over the summer, Osman made an Instagram page to showcase the ways she and her friends were cleaning beaches around the world. Mostyn said the group has been on trips to Jacksonville, Miami, Hawaii, Australia, North Carolina and California.
Natalie Erb, a UF marketing freshman, said she’s excited to spread the movement. The 18-year-old caught her first sight of the ocean at age 10 — her first wave at 12.
“Once you connect with the ocean, you connect with life, and we all share that.”
The #unlitter team will take a trip to Ecuador in December. For Mostyn, who surfed his first waves in the latitude-deficient South American country, it will be a kind of homecoming.
He said there is an “absurd amount of trash” at some of Ecuador’s beaches.
“When I was at Engabao beach six years ago, I met a girl in the Peace Corps whose job was basically to hang out with the locals and find out what the problem was,” Mostyn said. “Her job was to figure out what the problem was. It is #unlitter’s job to fix the problem.”
