These “Old Ladies” Dive Into Massachusetts Ponds, Come Up Bearing Pounds of Garbage

There are nearly 900 freshwater ponds across Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and if you visit one on any given day, you may be able to spot a crew of mostly silver-haired women donning wetsuits, diving in, and emerging, trash in hand. These are the Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage, and they’re on a mission to preserve the peninsula’s aquatic ecosystems.

“They’re like the last fragments of undisturbed natural beauty,” founder Susan Baur told Nice News. Baur, 85, has been swimming in ponds for the better part of two decades — she just finished writing a book about how her underwater experiences changed the way she relates to the world — but started trash-scouring during her excursions more recently.

“It happened by accident,” the retired psychologist said, explaining that she and the group’s first members began diving for garbage around 2018, then expanded their efforts during the pandemic when the only options for socializing were outdoor gatherings. “And when I realized that it wasn’t about the garbage, it’s about that we have discovered a way of repairing the planet, not based on guilt, not based on common sense, not based on fear, but based on joy, [I thought,] ‘Hell, we’ve got something terrific.’”

OP and further reading https://nicenews.com/environment/old-ladies-against-underwater-garbage-massachusetts/