Volunteers to clean up coastlines
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
The 18th annual International Coastal Cleanup, the world's largest one-day volunteer effort to help the marine environment, is scheduled for Saturday. Last year, nearly 400,000 people participated from many U.S. states and territories and 100 countries around the world. They cleaned more than 12,400 miles of beach and shoreline, and more than 9,000 divers collected 232,000 pounds of trash. In all, volunteers gathered 8.2 million pounds of marine debris.
Q. How can people participate?
A. Call (800) 262-2322 or visit www.coastalcleanup.org.
Q. In addition to volunteering in the cleanup, what else can people do?
A. Everyone who visits the shore can make a difference by cleaning up their own trash.
People who don't live or visit the beach can help by demanding that companies use less packaging and insisting on recycling products, better recycling facilities and adequate ways to dispose of trash.
Q: Why do people need to help?
A. Volunteers last year found 259 entangled animals, which emphasizes the havoc that debris wrecks on marine life. Everyday trash such as plastic six-pack holders, fishing line and nets can entangle marine animals. Animals also are killed by eating straws, balloons and plastic bags that they mistake for food. Volunteers also found dangerous and toxic items such as syringes, fish hooks, broken bottles and auto and boat batteries.
Q. Where does most of the trash come from?
A. People going to the beach and shoreline recreation account for 58 percent of marine trash. Simply put, too many people who visit the beach leave their trash behind.
Q. What were the most common items that volunteers collected?
A. Leading the Top 10 list were cigarettes and cigarette filters — 1.6 million items. They represented 26 percent of all of the trash, followed by:
- Food wrappers/containers — 10 percent
- Caps, lids — 8 percent
- Plastic (2-liter or less) bottles — 6 percent
- Cups, plates, forks, knives, spoons — 5.8 percent
- Beverage cans — 5.7 percent
- Glass beverage bottles — 5.5 percent
- Bags — 5.4 percent
- Straws, stirrers — 4.1 percent
- Cigar tips — 2.4 percent
Correction: To participate in the 18th annual Coastal Cleanup Saturday, call (800) 262-2322. The phone number included in a previous version of this story was incorrect.
