Why Nina Dobrev Was Left ‘Really Shocked’ on a Birthday Seashore Journey to Indonesia (Unique)

Nina Dobrev has at all times been captivated with defending the oceans — however a birthday journey two years in the past left her extra motivated than ever.

The actress, 36, tells PEOPLE that the journey to Indonesia she took with an enormous group of mates — together with now-fiancé Shaun White, her longtime BFF Julianne Hough and her The Out-Legal guidelines costar Adam Devine — for her thirty fourth birthday two years in the past left her “actually surprised in a horrible method.”

“We went on a visit for my birthday to Indonesia, and I had already been to this particular place and I cherished it a lot that I wished to convey my mates again there. And after I went again, I used to be actually surprised in a horrible method at how a lot the identical seaside that I might visited beforehand — there was no seaside left,” she recollects.

“It might crunch each time you’d take a step as a result of there was a lot plastic in every single place, of each selection. There was straws and cups and plates and sneakers and flip-flops and clothes and the whole lot.”

To make issues worse, Dobrev says the entire trash “clearly it seemed North American, and so the truth that it traveled all the best way to Indonesia made me actually unhappy.”

“That is what was so heartbreaking about it. In that second, [we] instantly began cleansing up the seaside. My intuition was to repair it in some way, and everybody round me began doing the identical factor and it felt good, however on the similar time, it additionally felt form of icky. It felt like, it is simply going to get soiled once more. It was simply going to get piled up.”

The expertise left her with greater than only a dangerous style in her mouth — it made her much more motivated to get entangled and unfold the phrase about simply how dire the scenario is in relation to plastic waste, so she’s teamed up with SC Johnson to just do that.

“As quickly as I heard about this initiative that SC Johnson is doing, it made me actually pleased and impressed and I wished to get entangled immediately,” she says of their advocacy marketing campaign, which makes use of a video of Zuzu the hermit crab to spur motion.

Zuzu’s story — he finds a plastic bottle on the seaside and makes a dangerous journey to recycle it — “places a face to this downside,” the Vampire Diaries alum says.

“I really feel like that is why so many individuals cannot get on board is as a result of it is form of out of sight, out of thoughts. You do not actually see it, however you see it on this movie and it actually holds you accountable to do one thing, I feel.”

The Be part of Zuzu marketing campaign is a method to make the issue “actually easy,” Dobrev says. “I felt discouraged at that seaside, after which after I heard about this initiative… They form of dumbed it down for us.”

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In an Instagram put up following her 2023 birthday journey, Dobrev referred to as it “a visit I’ll always remember” and “an ideal method to begin the 12 months stuffed with a lot pleasure and surrounded by so many unbelievable souls.”

“Thanks for making me really feel past celebrated. I really like you all. And I really feel so fortunate to be alive,” she wrote.