Your vacation affects the water. Even if you’re only going away for the weekend

Trash on the shore is the most visible sign of a waterfront vacation. But it’s not the only one. Rivers, lakes, the Baltic and coastal zones also experience what is harder to see immediately: trampled banks, detergents, damaged reed beds, frightened birds and places that need cleaning after the season, restoration or at least time for them to recover.

After someone else I’ll take it right away

She planned a morning walk by the sea. Even before breakfast, before the beach was filled with screens, towels and conversations carried by the wind. The sun was just peeking out from behind the horizon, the sand was cool, and the water had that steel-blue color that makes you believe for a moment that everything is in its place.

She walked barefoot. Slowly, more for silence than for movement. And then she felt pain. Something stuck in her foot. Not a shell. Not a pebble. A piece of glass. A small, sharp fragment from someone’s evening game, from someone’s bottle, from someone’s about to take it away.

From one person’s holiday evening has become someone else’s morning problem. This is one of the simplest definitions of the pressure we put on the water and its surroundings: a private convenience whose effects stay for a long time. On the beach, on the lake or river, in the reeds, on the pier, in the sand and in the water.

Water is not just a backdrop for a photo

We come to the water for rest, silence, view, coolness and a sense of freedom. Less often do we think about the fact that the shore, the beach, the vegetation, the shallows and the pier are not just scenery. They are part of a living system that responds to how we use it.

Water is not a neutral background for photos. It is a habitat, a natural filter, a place for breeding, feeding and shelter. What takes one person an hour, a weekend or two weeks, for a lake, a reed bed or a shallow coastal zone can mean pressure felt throughout the season, experienced at the hands of many tourists.

Therefore, sentences that sound like a columnist’s exaggeration are actually quite accurate descriptions of the problem: a lake is not a sink, a beach is not an ashtray, and a reed bed is not a parking lot for a canoe.

Scale makes a difference

A single cigarette butt in the sand, one path trodden to the shore or one washing of dishes in the lake may seem insignificant. The problem begins when thousands of people behave similarly throughout the season.

According to the Central Statistical Office, Poland’s residents will make 2025. 54.5 million domestic tourist trips. This does not mean that every one of them led to the water, but it gives a good indication of the scale of seasonal use of recreational spaces. Wody Polskie, on the other hand, estimates that several thousand tons of garbage are deposited on Polish rivers and reservoirs each year. Against this background, good water status, which according to the Water Framework Directive should be achieved by 2027 at the latest, remains a very distant goal. Most of Poland’s surface water bodies are still in poor condition.

Garbage is the easiest to spot in this picture. However, data from cleanup campaigns show that it’s not just individual bottles or cans left behind after the weekend. In 2025. As part of Operation Clean River , nearly 580 tons of waste were collected during 960 actions nationwide. Behind these numbers are the bags carried away from riverbanks, riverside areas, villages, towns and recreational sites.

A similar picture emerges from studies of the southern Baltic coast. The analysis, which included monitoring of beach waste, showed that plastic waste dominated, accounting for 64.3 percent of all garbage collected between 2020 and 2024. Cigarette butts were found most often, and 53.1 percent of the waste was attributed to tourism and recreation. A cigarette butt on the beach is sometimes treated as a trifle. In studies, it turns out to be one of the most persistent signs of human presence at the seaside.

Not everything can be collected in a bag

The impact of a vacation on water is not always in the shape of a bottle or a can. Sometimes it’s a trampled shoreline, damaged vegetation, a frightened bird, noise carried across the lake, detergent flushed into the water, a canoe dragged through a reed bed, or a campfire lit where the shore should remain intact.

There are also traces that are not visible during a morning walk. The study, published in 2025 in Water Research, looked at seven organic UV filters in Polish fresh waters used recreationally. The authors pointed to a clear seasonal pattern: concentrations of these substances were significantly higher in July, the period of peak tourist activity. This is not an argument against protecting skin from the sun. It’s a reminder that even sunscreen, rinsed off the body while swimming, becomes part of the chemical footprint of our presence by the water.

Detergents, cleaning agents, fuels, lubricants or substances running off shores, piers and boats have a similar effect. Water accepts not only what we throw into it. It also accepts what flows into it.

Name what passes for nothing

That’s why the 10GG actionwas created – “10 Deadly Sins of the Unaware Tourist“. Not as a list of prohibitions, but as an attempt to name what happens on the waterfront every day and often passes for innocent.

Because a lot of holiday damage seems quite innocent. Trampling a path among coastal vegetation doesn’t look like devastation. A wild descent into the water doesn’t look like a disaster. Washing dishes in the lake seems like a trifle. Noise by the water is sometimes treated as a natural part of the season. A dog let loose near bird habitat, a bonfire near the shore, an empty can left behind, a cigarette butt buried in the sand – any of these behaviors can be easily excused if we look only at ourselves and only for a day.

10GG shows that responsible recreation doesn’t start with grand declarations. It starts with simple decisions: where we go down to the water, what we take from the beach, how we behave at the shore, whether we treat the lake as a shared space or as a disposable place. In subsequent installments of the campaign, experts will explain why these seemingly small choices matter to water quality and the life of water-dependent ecosystems.

It’s not about banning water vacations

The point is not to take away people’s enjoyment of spending their vacations by the water. Contact with a river, lake or sea is one of the most pleasant forms of recreation. Rather, it’s about noticing the consequences of one’s decisions and doing no harm.

Resting by the water can be light, casual and ordinary. It doesn’t have to leave behind traces that someone else will remove after we leave. It’s the difference between using and abusing. Between presence and appropriation. Between a vacation after which only a memory is left and a vacation after which the ecosystem must recover.

A beach where you can walk barefoot

This year’s 10GG will be accompanied by a photo contest called “Your Vacation Influences the Water.” This is not to show the perfect vacation pictures, but to capture good practices: the order left after a picnic, the use of designated descents, the respect for vegetation, the beach where you can walk barefoot in the morning without fear of getting something stuck in your foot.

Because responsible recreation on the water is rarely spectacular. Often it is simply invisible: it does not leave trash, destroy the shore, cut the reeds, frighten the birds, turn the lake into a sink or the beach into an ashtray.

Waterfront vacations don’t end when we fold our towel and go home. They only end when nothing needs to be cleaned, recreated or explained after our stay.

This is the simplest sense of the slogan: Your vacations affect the water. They influence always. The question is – how much.