Volunteers clean beach after holiday weekend

PINE KNOLL SHORES — Beach gear included work gloves and garbage bags on Bogue Banks as volunteers combed the shoreline as part of a post-holiday beach cleanup.

Remains of holiday celebrations and the typical litter from beach-day fun filled trash bags carried by the 20 or so volunteers who swept the beach strand Tuesday along Pine Knoll Shores clean.

“There are always a lot of fireworks on the beach after the 4th of July. You find all kinds of things,” said John Brodman, chairman of the Pine Knoll Shores Parks and Recreation Committee.

The town’s Parks and Recreation Committee partnered with the N.C. Aquarium on the beach cleanup, one of two the town is part of each year. The N.C. Big Sweep cleanup in the fall is the other.

“We usually do two big cleanups a year and do one of them after the Fourth of July because it is one of our busiest weekends and sometimes the beach really needs it,” Brodman said.

The post-holiday cleanup is an informal one but this year drew about 20 volunteers to help keep the beach at its best in conjunction with National Clean Beaches Week.

“It’s a really low-key event but it gets the community involved,” said Wendy Cluse of the N.C. Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, who helped organize the event.

Pine Knoll Shores isn’t alone in its shoreline sweep of litter and trash.

Keep Onslow Beautiful has held beach cleanups along Topsail Island and other locations for 20 years or more.

And next on the list is the beach cleanup planned for Saturday July 9 as part of the Earth and Surf Fest at North Topsail Beach.

The cleanup has been part of the festival since it started five years ago. In 2010, the findings included plastic and glass bottles, fishing line, clothing and shoes, bags, used firecrackers, tobacco packaging and even a few discarded lottery tickets. And the biggest culprit in beach litter.

“The No. 1 article is always the cigarette litter,” Lisa Grant of Keep Onslow Beautiful.

Grant said keeping the beaches clean is not only an environmental and health issue but one that impacts the economy.

“We have a tourism-based economy in North Carolina and people come here for the beaches,” she said.

With more recycling and trash receptacles at beach access and people more conscious of recycling and the environment, Grant said the litter isn’t always due to a lack of people caring.

Aquarium joins Pine Knoll Shores in beach clean-up - Within ...

The North Carolina Aquarium is teaming up with the town of Pine Knoll Shores in a post-holiday clean-up of the beach on Tuesday, July 5, beginning at 9 a.m. Those interested in contributing to the effort should report to the Iron Steamer Public Access for registration and assignment to a section of the Pine Knoll Shores beachfront. Garbage bags will be provided. Volunteers are encouraged to bring their own drinking water and work gloves.

For more information, call Aquarium Conservation and Research Coordinator Wendy Cluse at 252-247-4003, ext. 267.

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