Season Farewell….

Monday, August 31, 2015

This is my last walk for the KIC season, but certainly NOT my last beach walk of the year.  

John is out of town, so I walked alone; that is,  until I ran into Rick.  :-)  Remember Rick from last week?  Yes, he was there again today.  A return to normal patterns on the beach.  Just like the rising and falling of the tides and the waxing and waning of the moon, beach people always return to their familiar salty patterns and that is a good thing.

I LOVE our beach, so I don't mind picking up the litter.  The beach gives me so much.  I find comfort, relaxation, solace, peace, and a sense of well-being at the beach---so I don't mind giving back to Mother Ocean.  It is the least I can do.  

I wish I could say that my litter bag was empty, but that is not the case.  Here is what I collected today:

99 cigarette butts!--is WB really a non-smoking beach?

65 food wrappers

47 plastic bottle caps!

1 metal bottle cap

2 plastic lids

8 straws/stirrers

1 platic knife

2 plastic beverage bottles

1 aluminum can

1 ziploc bag full of nuts that the birds were eating, meaning they had pecked holes all in the plastic bag; likely ingesting the plastic  :-(

1 plastic cup

1 foam cup

5 balloons

22 pieces of fireworks

8 foam pieces

33 plastic pieces

20 pieces of packaging

6 articles of clothing

I found the match to this shoe a couple of weeks ago!  :-)

18 pieces of toys

1 large piece of plastic from an old 5 gallon bucket that had been in the ocean for some time

2 pieces of surfwax

How many pieces of litter can you find in this one picture.

2 rubber bands

1 chap stick

2 plastic tents stakes

8 bandaids and medical tape

1 dryer sheet

2 wet ones

1 sunglass lens

6 various pieces of string

1 platic zip tie

1 artificial flower petal--I find these every week???

1 very soggy and sandy wallet stuffed with plastic cards, but no cash (I gave it to the police)

My views beyond the litter bag were absolutely astounding, as always!

Even the birds take time to enjoy the views once in a while.

Until Nest Season,
Peace and Clean Oceans,
Ginger

KIC Volunteers Participate in Surfrider Beach Sweep

Sunday, August 30th.

Surfrider Cape Fear Chapter is one of our favorite organizations.  They do so much in our community to keep our beaches clean and to protect the environment.  So, when we were asked if we would come to their beach sweep, we said, "YES!"

The awesome thing about Surfrider's beach sweeps around here is that they use reusable burlap sacks for the trash.  Yep, that means NO plastic bags!!!!

As you can see in the picture below, my burlap sack had lots of cigarette butts.  WB is a non-smoking beach, so I'm not sure what is up with that.  We need more education about our ordinances so that we can keep the beach clean for everyone.

Thank you Surfrider!  We love you!