International Coastal Cleanup Day...

was officially September 20th. However, in our area September 27th was used as an additional day to participate. Ted's company gives back to the community throughout the year, including in this way. When we join these events we wear red shirts that say "Spirit of Service". When we arrived at First Landing State Park the ranger explained that we would be divided into groups of 3 or 4 to walk down the beach and even into the dunes, which are usually off limits. 

A good morning's work!

We linked up with Bill and Betsey and hit it off right away because they are scuba divers too! We spent 90 minutes walking along the beach; other groups were scattered in front and behind us. Betsey recorded the items collected on the official Ocean Conservancy tally sheet, and we carried trash bags.

Now, you might think that with all those people walking the same stretch of beach there wouldn't be much trash left to pick up. Mostly what we found were cigarette butts, pieces of styrofoam, plastic wrappers, bottle caps, and micro plastic. Think of how light those things are. Our group alone collected 15 pounds of that kind of trash. Isn't that amazing? Sad, too.

Now:

Multiply that by 648,015 volunteers,
who collected 12,329,332 pound of trash,
on 12,914 miles of coastline.

What did they find? Check out this infographic from the Ocean Conservancy!

And the weirdest items found?

Truthfully, we four agreed that it didn't feel like "community service". We walked on along a beautiful beach on a sunny, warm day chatting with new friends. It was about as good as Saturday gets. 

Click here for more about the Ocean Conservance and the 2014 Coastal Cleanup.