Isn't it surprising what a gray and rainy August we have had? This morning (Friday, August 24) the sun peeped through the clouds for a few moments, but then was hidden again, as the cloud thickened and the skies became stormy.
Today, because of all of the rainy weather this week, there was very little evidence of recent activity on the beach. One green inflatable raft washed up at the shore line, and there were a few sand toys. But other than that, I did not find a lot of trash from beach-goers. What I did find, however, was an enormous amount of trash that had washed up at the wrack line. As always, there was an overwhelming number of cigarette butts. It would have been a challenge for anyone to clean them up-- even a team of people with rakes. Other common items included bottle caps, band-aids, straw wrappers, and straws. From this one small patch of sea grass, I pulled 16 cigarette butts, so it is sad to imagine how many were all along the length of WB this morning.
My litter total for today was 1/2 of my reusable bag, which is equal to 2 plastic grocery bags of litter. This included:
-64 plastic bottlecaps
-2 aluminum cans
- 2 cigarette boxes
- 1 glass soda bottle
- 4 plastic utensils
- 422 cigarette butts
- 30 plastic straws
-4 balloons
I sorted my trash out next to the restrooms at Johnnie Mercer's Pier today. A man with a metal detector came along, watched me sort the trash into piles, and asked me what I was going to do with all the "stuff" I found. I told him I was going to sort it out, document it, then throw it away. He looked at me like I was completely crazy. But I guess sometimes people forget that knowing that we've helped out the ocean and all of its inhabitants is the "treasure" part of what we do.
Peace,
Susan
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