By Susan Miller
Contributing Writer
Picnickers ate from acrylic plates with cloth napkins spread across their laps, sipping beverages from refillable glass water bottles. The goal was to hold an end-of-season appreciation dinner in Wrightsville Beach Park Sunday, Sept. 14, free from all of the waste that normally accompanies a party. It is part of the vision of Wrightsville Beach — Keep It Clean (WBKIC), organized by project leader Ginger Taylor.
Summer 2014 marked the fifth consecutive year Taylor led volunteers in picking up and recording litter along the Wrightsville Beach strand from May 15 to Aug. 31. It was the second year the group collaborated with Ocean Conservancy to document the total number of items collected. WBKIC volunteers picked up more than 11,000 pieces of litter, not including large items such as broken chairs and umbrellas. The littered item with the highest tally during summer 2014 was the cigarette butt, which numbered 1,828.
The most litter picked up during one morning was 30 bags collected by volunteers Amber Hassen and Ben Kerr between Public Beach Access No. 7 and Johnnie Mercer’s Pier the day after Memorial Day, Tuesday, May 27.
During summer 2013, the first year of the smoking ban, volunteers saw a reduction in the number of cigarette butts found, with the total tallying 1,289. Taylor said the 2014 increase in butts may have come from storm drain washout, which causes butts to wash up in the wrack line.
“As a whole, most of our trash is land based here,” Taylor said.
The key, she said, to reduce land-based litter and keep the strand pristine is to educate people about the importance picking up items before leaving the beach.
In between eating pizza donated by Vito’s Pizzeria and winning raffle prizes handed out by Taylor, volunteers discussed ways WBKIC’s message could be spread.
Jason Hand pointed out the recent success of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and suggested a similar effort in which volunteers could challenge beachgoers to pick up one bottle cap for every seashell collected at the beach. Plastic bottle caps were the fourth most commonly picked up item during summer 2014, totaling 884.
Volunteer Kym Davidson said all people, regardless of where they live, should understand that when they litter, it will end up in an ocean.
“It’s going to go in a ditch, it’s going to go in the river, it’s going to go in the ocean,” Davidson said. “Pick up litter everywhere, not just at the beach.”
Visit www. wbkeepitclean.blogspot.com to read the WBKIC blog.
