Mauritius's public beaches take in thousands of people every weekend, and the cleaning teams come through on Monday. In between, whatever stays on the sand ends up in the lagoon at the first tide or the first gust. Light plastic — cutlery, straws, cling film, bags — travels furthest and turns up in the corals of Blue Bay twenty kilometres away.
The most effective habit is also the simplest: arrive with two empty bags. One for rubbish, one for bottles and cans, which are recycled separately in Mauritius. Everything goes back in the boot, even if there's a bin on site: beach bins overflow without fail on Sunday afternoons and empty themselves into the wind before the teams come by.
Next, swap what breaks for what lasts: water bottles instead of single-use ones, airtight boxes instead of cling film, stainless cutlery instead of disposable, and a real tablecloth rather than a paper one. It costs nothing extra over three outings, and it removes most of a picnic's waste volume in one go.
Fire deserves particular attention. Casuarina roots run close to the surface and smoulder slowly: a barbecue set straight on the sand can kill a tree two years later, which partly explains the gaps appearing along some northern beaches. A raised brazier and embers doused with water before leaving, and the problem disappears.
Finally, in protected areas — Blue Bay Marine Park, Bras d'Eau National Park, Île aux Aigrettes — the rules are stricter and they exist for a reason. Oxybenzone-free sunscreen in the marine park, no taking shells or coral, and never feed the monkeys or the birds: a fed macaque becomes an aggressive macaque, and it's then the animal that gets moved on.
