By Beth Stern, FIWMD
Fishers Island Waste Management, along with the American Littoral Society, sponsored a Beach Cleanup event on Saturday, September 20, 2014. This year’s event attracted more participants than any previous year. We would like to point out that Carol Giles and Karen Goodwin at Fishers Island School were a tremendous help with getting the word out. As in the past, Liz Furse generosity donated ice cream from Toppers to those who took part in the event.
In truth, each and every one of you who participated made the event a success.
62 of you returned with your full trash bags and data cards that indicated exactly what beach trash was collected. Some of the information from your data cards tells us this:
- Some of the areas covered were Silver Eel, North Hill, Barley Field, Darby’s Cove and Race Point
- 600 Plastic Bottle Caps, 329 Plastic Bottles, 27 Shoes, 141 Balloons were recovered
One team walking the Race Point area came across a seagull that was stranded with a fishing plug imbedded in its side. They were able to free the seagull from harm and watch it fly away.
On a less fortunate level, several dead seagulls were seen. Marine debris, especially plastic, kills more than one million seabirds every year.
Next year we hope to sponsor the event in July and again in September. When the time comes look out for announcements. We look forward to seeing everyone participate in 2015.
