North Avenue Beach: Follow up on International Coastal Clean-Up Day
This is Steve Carlsen of Matson, an international shipping company that supported the 20th annual International Coastal Cleanup at North Avenue Beach. He worked his butt off helping to clean the beach, including hauling away this cinder block. Thank you, Steve, and thank you to all the folks who turned out.
More than 75 people (almost a third from the suburbs ) picked up more than 260 pounds of garbage. Some were disgusted by what we found. Others were amazed. I’ve posted the complete tally after the jump so you can take a look for yourself at the very telling totals.
Garbage Collected at North Avenue Beach on Saturday, September 17, 2005 between 9 a.m. and noon.
Shoreline & Recreational Activity Items
93 bags
94 balloons
116 plastic beverage bottles
117 glass beverage bottles
131 beverage cans
711 caps, lids
15 clothing, shoes
158 cups, plates, forks, knives, spoons
798 food wrappers
61 pull tabs
6 six-pack holders
7 shotgun shells
344 straws, stirrers
24 toys
Lake/Waterway Activities
5 fishing lines
3 fishing nets
34 plastic sheeting/tarps
13 rope
259 strapping bands (we think these may be from volleyball players’
netting)
Smoking-Related Activities
4466 cigarette/cigarette filters
1 lighter
62 cigar tips
21 tobacco wrappers
8 batteries
54 building materials
1 car part (antennae)
Medical/Personal Hygiene
12 condoms
1 diaper
3 tampons, applicators
15 Band-Aids
21 Hair accessories
Dumping Activities
8 batteries
54 building materials
Also: 1 sign post, 1 concrete brick, 1 Lexus car key
These totals will be culled and added to everyone else’s tallies from around the world and congregated for a grand total through the managing organization, The Ocean Conservancy.
(For example, last year volunteers picked up 1,292,154 cigarette butts worldwide and 7,102,030 pieces of
garbage total worldwide.)
For more information about the Coastal Cleanup or to get involved in protecting and restoring our beaches, please refer to the links below.
If we could somehow get cigarette smokers to quit, not only would the air be cleaner (think 30 million US smokers or whatever it is smoking 20 cigarettes a day), but they just throw their garbage anywhere.
If you drop a McDonald’s wrapper, you’re gonna get looks. Somebody throws a cigarette butt down, no big deal, right? Wrong. That cigarette butt is less biodegradable than the McDonald’s wrapper.
That is my biggest pet peeve about smokers. Too frequently, they don’t consider their butts garbage. The physical act of smoking often comes to a careless end that is nothing more than flamboyant littering: squishing it underfoot, flicking it out the car window, dropping it in the sand.
Throwing their butts around is pretty bad, but it’s even worse when there’s one of those cigarette butt receptacles nearby. Countless times I’ve seen people outside of their building on a smoke break flick their butts on the sidewalk or street when there’s a container specifically for that purpose no further than 5 feet away.
I always say “Pig!” when I see somebody throw a butt on the ground.
/But then, I always make the pig nose when I see a Hummer, too, so….
//Also, I like to say “Nice stink!” whenever somebody is smoking near me, sooooo….
///I may not be the person to emulate, I’m just sayin’
////Love those slashies!