LAVALLETTE — Beach cleanup volunteerism swept the Jersey Shore this weekend, with thousands coming out to more than 80 locations for this year’s fall Clean Ocean Action (COA) Beach Sweeps.
The sweeps took place at local municipalities including Bradley Beach, Avon-By-The-Sea, Belmar, Spring Lake, Sea Girt, Manasquan, Point Pleasant Beach, Point Pleasant Borough, Bay Head, Mantoloking, Brick and Lavallette. This year, according to COA Debris-Free Sea Coordinator Kira Cruz, there were more locations — 83 in total — in New Jersey than ever before.
“It’s important to remove as much of this debris as we can; it’s harmful to the environment, especially plastic and other items that don’t break down or break down very slowly. They never truly go away,” she said. “That’s detrimental to our environment, whether it’s marine life, life on land, or human health.”
“Eventually, whether people realize it or not, everything leads to the ocean,” Cruz said, “where it then comes back right back up onto the land. All waterways lead to the ocean; there are times when this stuff is left behind by negligent people, but we do see a lot of things that primarily come from inland washing up from high tide.”
Cruz also said that the most common types of trash in past years collected from beach sweeps are lids from plastic bottles.
“The top item that we find and have been finding over the past year are bottle caps,” she said. “They’ve been our top item for the last few sweeps now. If you look at our 2023 report we do have a ‘dirty dozen,’ which is our top 12 ocean offenders, and plastic bottle caps and lids are definitely on the rise.”
In Ocean County, Lavallette was one of several communities that came out in force to help curb the amount of plastic and other waste entering the water system. High school student Landon Hoberman, co-chair of the Lavallette Environmental Cleanup Club and junior beach sweep captain for Lavallette, told The Ocean Star some of his town’s statistics regarding the amount of trash that was swept from the beach.
“Today has gone amazing,” Landon said. “We lucked out with the weather; we had over 90 people and we still have people waiting to come back. But so far, we’ve collected 55 pounds already.”
“It’s really incredible to see the magnitude of it all,” he said. “We have the bay on one side, beach on the other. So, it’s extremely important that we address both areas. No matter where we go — western winds, eastern winds — the litter all ends up in our environment. The fact that we are sandwiched by water makes it even more important that we care for the bay, business district and the beach.”
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