Nearly 5,000 Pieces of Trash Removed from Truro Beach on World Oceans Day

TRURO – The results are in from the nearly 5,000 pieces of trash removed from Cape Cod beaches by over two dozen volunteers in the Center for Coastal Studies’ World Oceans Day beach cleanup last week.

Volunteers met to clean at Beach Point in Truro on June 8, removing 4,996 pieces of trash in less than 1.5 hours.

In a collaborative effort, the Town of Truro conducted cleanups at other Truro beaches and cleared 250 pounds of additional trash with their group of 45 volunteers.

The CCS effort involved two separate components – the cleanup, and the inventory. Without having to carry a clipboard or tally as they go, volunteers dispersed from Noons Landing, the Days Cottages, and Beach Point Landing, collecting trash for 1-2 hours and returning their bags to Beach Point Landing.

Because identifying and tallying the debris from cleanups is an important and integral part of tackling marine plastic pollution, a second group of volunteers then spent 3 hours sorting and counting all the collected debris, giving researchers a very clear idea of the primary culprits.

Most of the top-ten items were “consumer debris” – packaging materials, food-related items, toys, balloons, and polystyrene foam. Rope and buoy material from the lobster fishery were the only non-consumer debris in the top-ten list (by count).

The Top Ten List from the CCS World Oceans Day 2019 cleanup:

10: Buoys/floats/pieces–118

9: Balloons/balloon strings–226

8: Rope–246

7: Styrofoam cups/pieces–305

6: Caps/lids–325

5: Food Wrappers–350

4: Construction Material (mostly insulation foam)–350

3: Rigid Non-descript plastic–492

2: Plastic Wrapping–703

1: Styrofoam Packaging—935

In among the trash were a few “treasures”: antique glass bottle, plastic toy soldier, plastic toy Indian chief, plastic toy shovels, plastic duck decoy head, and a plastic wastewater treatment disk, called a “Hooksett disk”. Millions of these were accidentally released from a plant in Hooksett NH in 2011, and they have been showing up on beaches ever since.

The Center for Coastal Studies would like to thank the volunteers and Julie Knapp at Twisted Pizza for supporting the CCS cleanup, and congratulate the Town of Truro for their same-day success.

By TIM DUNN, CapeCod.com News Center 

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