Tremendous Turnout at Beach Sweeps

On April 21 thousands of volunteers gathered from 9am – 12:30pm at 70 locations along New Jersey’s shoreline, rivers and streams from Essex County to Cape May to remove harmful debris at Clean Ocean Action’s (COA) 33nd Annual Spring Beach Sweeps.  Data and photos continue to pour in.

This year on Sandy Hook, roughly 873 volunteers collected 49,196 pieces of marine debris. The preliminary Top 5 results from Sandy Hook are:

1.) 9,412 plastic pieces
2.) 6,579 food/candy wrappers
3.) 5,989 caps/lids
4.) 3,749 foam pieces
5.) 3,693 straws/stirrers

Volunteers are encouraged to note any out-of-the-ordinary finds which COA labels as “The Roster of the Ridiculous.” Some of the items catalogued included: Block of iron, inhaler, turkey baster, fire extinguisher, headphones, deceased Green Sea Turtle, deceased Harp Seal, deceased Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle, full paint bucket, full set of keys, nickel, children’s toy watering can, couch, message in a bottle, snake hiding in a tire, and whale toy.

Check out COA’s Facebook page to view the photo gallery.