Sept. 17, 2006 – Brewers Bay beach sparkled Saturday. At least, it did after about 10:30 a.m., when it was wiped clean by a group of determined students celebrating the kickoff of Coast Weeks 2006.
The local event, which is organized globally by The Ocean Conservancy, began Saturday and ends Oct. 7. While the Ocean Conservancy officially calls the event International Coastal Cleanup, locally and in some other locales it is commonly referred to as Coast Weeks.
The beach cleaners Saturday at Brewers were part of more than 450,000, from almost 100 countries participating this year. It's estimated they will pick up nearly nine million pounds of debris from thousands of miles of shoreline and waterways, according to the Ocean Conservancy Web site.
Brewers was part of a 13-beach cleanup scheduled for St. Thomas and St. John on Saturday, with an additional 18 scheduled before event's end.
It was quite a day, according to Elizabeth Ban, advisor at UVI's Marine Advisory Service. The groups picked up 22 bags of trash and cleaned about three-quarters of a mile of beach in two hours.
"It was a great turnout," Ban said, "really good. We had 20 students from Antilles School. They were organized by Alan Eberhart, but he had to teach today, so Mike Cook took the kids. It was a group effort with Later — a group from Addelita Cancryn, led by Anna Wallace Francis — [which] came out, about nine of them. They're part of the Environmental Rangers."
Ban said the No. 1 item they picked up was "hands down … bottle caps, 601 of them." In addition to taking the debris from the beach, the participants keep a meticulous log of what they collect. "These statistics help in increasing awareness about the impact of the marine debris," Ban said.
One item in particular this year, Ban found unsettling. "We found 76 of what's called 'dime bags' of marijuana," she said. "It's very disturbing that this is going on on a public beach. We've not found them at many other beaches. It's easily tripled from last year. As one student pointed out, they are all empty."
The Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup is the largest and most successful volunteer event of its kind. Each year thousands of volunteers from around the globe participate, clearing tons of trash from coastlines, rivers and lakes and recording every piece of trash collected.
The program locally is in its 16th year. Conservancy figures for 2005, compiled by Ban and her St. Croix associate Marcia Taylor, show 674 volunteers came out. They covered 27 miles of beachfront, picking up 28,177 items weighing 11,096 pounds.
About 81 percent of the debris originated from land-based activities like picnics or festivals. Worldwide these activities account for 58 percent of the debris collected.
Offshore activities accounted for only 10 percent of the debris. This is consistent with worldwide figures, which show an 8 percent figure.
The top three items found last year are the same this year, at least on Brewers Bay: bottle caps, bottle lids and plastic beverage bottles.
In 2005, worldwide volunteers found 101 animals entangled in debris. Seabirds are also victims of debris, representing nearly half of the total entangled wildlife.
Ban has some tips for keeping our beaches clean and sea animals safe:
– Dispose of trash properly.
– Reduce, reuse and recycle.
– Cut the rings out of six-pack holders. This lowers the risk of entanglement to marine animals if the holders make it out to sea.
And finally, Ban encouraged everyone to get involved in the cleanup. There is still time to participate in this year's activities. Call Ban on St. Thomas at 693-1392, or Taylor on St. Croix at 692-4046.
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