Happy Post-Independence Day!

Friday, July 5, Zone 0

Finally, a lovely morning without rain! Yay! Our beautiful coastal weather is finally back.

I rose and headed to the beach a little bit earlier than normal this morning, anticipating that there would be quite a bit of litter to clean up after the Fourth of July holiday. Indeed, the normally-clean north end was pretty trashed.

As I began walking, I noticed that there was a young lady ahead of me who was walking and picking up various cups and other littered items as she went along. I was grateful to see her doing that and thought it was nice of her to help.

A little bit north of Shell Island resort, I came upon a tent that had been left overnight, along with two of the resort's blue umbrellas, which had been taken down and were lying in the sand. One of the umbrellas was halfway in the bird sanctuary and actually resting on top of the rope around the habitat. I was rather horrified to find it that way, so I carefully moved it, and checked to make sure that the rope had not been damaged. I am not sure how it got there, but the umbrellas are fairly heavy, so the odd thing is that it seemed that someone must have deliberately placed it there.

 

Indent in the sand from the umbrella that was inside the bird sanctuary

As I walked, I picked up a lot of fireworks and firework remnants.

I also noticed a lot of pieces of chewed gum along the tide line, which seemed odd, as this is something I've never noticed before.

 

My litter total for the day included:

-1 styrofoam cooler that was broken into 3 pieces

-2 plastic cups

-1 styrofoam coffee cup

-7 plastic water/Gatorade bottles

-30 fireworks

-1 headband

-10 cigarette butts

-5 snack wrappers

-1 broken shovel

-2 sand toys

-1 Live Strong bracelet

-4 ponytail holders

-2 beer caps

-3 plastic water bottle caps

-1 boogie board leash

-1 styrofoam "noodle" water toy

-1 glass bottle

-1 shirt

-1 sock

-3 beer cans

-various plastic bits

-various paper food wrappers

-4 plastic straws

-1 set of plastic cutlery 

-2 broken pairs sunglasses

Peace,
Susan

Trash and treasure

Friday, June 28

Well, I didn't get those sunny skies that I hoped for last week-- not yet, at least! Not unlike everyone else, I am tired of this rain! But coastal weather is always full of surprises and I am keeping my fingers crossed that we'll go back to normal soon.

This morning in zone 0, I was able to walk further out onto the north end inlet than I ever have before. The tide was very low, so it made the area great for exploring.

The sand on the ocean side was packed down very, very hard from a night a heavy downpours. This made the ghost crabs' burrows quite visible on the smooth surface  of the sand. I always think it's fun to stand quietly by and watch the little crabs skitter out.

Overall today, there was not too much litter. I picked up:

-1 McDonalds plastic lid and straw
-1 cookie wrapper
-1 plastic water bottle
-3 plastic cups, all from in front of Shell Island Resort
- 3 plastic straws
-1 coffee cup lid
-1 plastic fork
-1 hat
-1 plastic bottle cap
-a mangled piece of an aluminum can that had been out at sea for a long time

The cool part is that I also found some very neat and interesting treasures, including a small shark's tooth fossil and a very large chunk of sea glass.

Peace,
Susan

Wind, fog and rain

Friday, June 21

Well, here's something that I wasn't expecting for the first day of summer on the beach... it was really cold! In fact, I took a sweatshirt out of my trunk to wear, and I was still surprised by how cold I was. Even the common terns looked chilly as they braced themselves against the gusting wind. What a year of wacky weather it has been.

The tide came up very high last night, so all of the trash I found had obviously already taken a tour out in the ocean. It always makes me very sad to find litter that has been out in the water. A good example of this is with the cigarette butts I found. On a normal day on the north end of Wrightsville Beach, there are very few cigarette butts; in fact, for the last several weeks I have hardly found any at all. Today, however, I found quite a few. They were all waterlogged and at the wrack line, so they had obviously been offered up by the tide, meaning that those chemicals left in the filters have already been released into the water. Like Bonnie Monteleone says, "the solution to pollution is dilution," but you have to wonder, with millions of cigarette butts out in the ocean, how are the chemicals possibly affecting the plant and animal life?

My litter total for today is:
1 piece of a black plastic tarp
43 cigarette butts
7 plastic straws
1 plastic spoon
1 plastic knife
various indistinguishable plastic trash
1 fishing bait
2 balloons
1 champagne cork
5 food/snack wrappers
2 sand toys
1 ice bag
1 clump of styrofoam
7 plastic bottle caps

Overall, it was a very gloomy day. Here's hoping for brighter skies next week!

Peace,
Susan

Sunshine and Rain!

The weather this summer has been so crazy around here.  I can not think of when it has rained more!

When John and I arrived at the beach this morning, it was semi-clear (or was it just too dark to tell?)  Anyway, the quarter moon was shining high in the sky, so it seemed clear.

Although overall, our zone was pretty clean (probably because there have been less people on the beach with all this inclement weather) our nest told a different story as I found a straw in front of the nest, a stray piece of plastic wrapped around the stake of the nest, and a plastic cup just behind the nest in the dune.

straw

stray plastic around base of stake

can you find the plastic cup?

As we walked, the weather changed and we just knew we were going to get drenched, but we made it off the beach just in time!

Black Skimmer

John moves ahead of the storm!

Our total collection included:
26 butts
17 food wrappers
6 bottle caps
6 plastic lids
17 straws/stirrers
4 plastic cutlery
1 diving knife

1 balloon
4 plastic bottles
1 aluminum can
1 plastic grocery bag

3 plastic cups
2 cigarette packages
14 toys or toy pieces
lots of other various things including a broken skateboard.

We did not take this beautiful cat, Sasha from the beach, but we did rescue her from an office parking lot!  As you can tell, she doesn't like the trash that much, but she insisted on helping me sort it!

All of our animals (3 cats and 1 dog) are rescue pets!  They rescue us every day (we're not exactly sure what they are rescuing us from, but they are!)  :-)

ginger and john

Another Pictorial From Monica in Zone 5

Please Keep our Beach Clean and "Safe" for Nesting Sea Turtles!

WBSTP volunteers have found two more sea turtle nests on WB, bringing our total to 4 so far this year!  We are so excited about this!!!!

Below are pics of the joy that takes place on the mornings of these wonderful and exciting discoveries.

Clem, Dave, and Nancy at Nest #3

John and Terri Littlejohn and Ferris at Nest #4

We did pick up trash at nest site #3.  We found a round cardboard disc, a piece of plastic, and a cigarette butt in the sand as we were digging for the eggs.  As I was walking just feet from the nesting site, I found two condom wrappers.  While I'm glad the humans were being "safe" by using the condoms, I do wish they would keep the beach "safe" for other "wild life" by removing their debris!  :-)

No, none of this belonged to me!  I just removed it from the nesting area!

What can I say?  "Happy and Safe Nesting to Turtles and Humans???"  :-)

ginger

A Rain Cloud A Day Keeps the Trash Away!

John and I found very little trash on Monday morning, June 24th.  In fact, we only found 1/2 reusable bag of trash between the two of us.  I surmise it may be in part to all of this rain we are having at WB this year.  What is going on with this rainy, windy summer????    Hail the Sunshine!!!!!

Rain on the horizon during our walk

We are still finding trash in the construction zone at Oceanic.  Even though the litter is inside the orange tarp, so it is not as likely to get blown around, it is still being covered up by sand and leaving litter on the beach.  I hope the construction workers will be diligent in keeping this area clean.  Here are some photos of what we found this week.  We did tighten the caution tape so that it would no longer be dragging on the ground creating an entanglement hazard for any potentially nesting turtles or sea birds.

Our items this week include:
50 cigarette butts (likely more, I just stopped counting---there were so many this week  :-(
12 food wrappers
16 plastic bottle caps
2 metal bottle caps
5 plastic lids
13 straws/stirrers

all the straws we have collected so far this year

2 plastic spoons
4 pieces of fishing gear
3 balloons
1 cigar tip
1 cigarette lighter
2 fireworks
4 foam pieces
11 plastic pieces
1 aluminum can
1 ziploc bag
2 plastic cups (one wrapped in plastic from a hotel)
1 foam cup
2 plastic dental flossers
1 bathing suit strap
1 towel
9 toys
1 next morning Super Moon!

ginger

Toppled trash cans in zone 0

 Friday, June 14, zone 0

The first thing I saw upon walking onto the beach on Friday, June 14 was this amazing pre-dawn sky. Wow! Quite remarkable, isn't it?

The second thing I noticed, however, was that several trash cans had blown over in front of Shell Island Resort during the storm the night before. Someone also placed an entire mangled tent frame next to a trash can, which some nearby stand up paddleboarders commented was probably that person's version of "putting it in the trash."

I decided to save the blown-over trashcans for the end of my walk, knowing that it would take a while to pick them all up. However, by the time I completed my walk and returned to Shell Island Resort, the town's maintenance crew had picked up the trash cans along with most of the trash that had spilled out of them. They had even removed the tent frame. I placed the remaining items I found back into the cans. (I did not count these in my litter tally, because I though that people had tried to do the right thing by placing them in the trash cans, without realizing that they would blow out.)

My litter count for the day included:
- 1 pair of glasses
- 1 length of plastic ribbon
- 1 styrofoam take out container
- 2 coffee cups with plastic lids
- 1 plastic cup
- 2 plastic straws
- 1 men's flip flop
- 1 plastic bags
- 1 lighter
- 1 Frito's bag
- 1 drink packet
- 2 Bud Light cans
- 3 plastic water bottles

Overall, it was yet another exceptionally lovely morning at WB!

Peace,
Susan