By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Volunteers who cleaned up Sea Isle City’s beaches and dunes this spring found plenty of the typical trash that litters the shoreline each year: discarded bottles, plastic bags, cigarette butts, straws, paper food wrappers and construction debris.
They also saw or removed some highly unusual things mixed in with all the trash: a $20 bill, a cellphone, a wig, underwear, some yellow crime scene tape, a snake and even a seal sunning itself on the beach.
Altogether, 4,221 pieces of trash, litter and other odds and ends were collected during a community cleanup April 9 that included more than 200 volunteers fanning out over the entire island, according to a newly released report.
By far, most of the trash removed from the beaches and dunes was of the plastic type, which included hundreds of cigarette filters. Bottle caps, food and candy wrappers, straws and bags were also commonly found among the plastic litter.
“Items of concern are plastic store bags, foam and plastic straws that are repeatedly found on our beaches,” according to the post-cleanup report released by the Sea Isle City Environmental Commission.
However, the report raises hope that in coming years plastic trash will become less common on the beaches, following New Jersey’s new law banning plastic grocery store bags, Styrofoam food containers and plastic straws. The statewide ban began May 4.
“This ban on plastic grocery store bags, Styrofoam food containers and plastic straws will aid to prevent and minimize any harmful effects to the beach environment and marine life,” the report states.
In addition, there are strong indications that a statewide smoking ban that took effect Jan. 1, 2019, at New Jersey beaches and parks is significantly reducing the number of cigarette butts littering Sea Isle’s shoreline
The state gave shore communities the discretion to either ban smoking altogether or designate small areas where beachgoers could still light up. Sea Isle imposed a complete smoking ban on its beaches.
In Sea Isle, the number of cigarette butts found on the beaches and dunes during annual community cleanups conducted in the spring and fall has been dropping ever since the smoking ban started. The most recent cleanup continued to reflect that downward trend.
“Data collection from the April 9, 2022, beach cleanup event shows a significant and encouraging decrease in the number of collected cigarette filters compared to previous years’ beach cleanups,” the report says.
Overall, 339 discarded cigarette butts were removed from the beaches during April’s cleanup. In the fall beach cleanup in October 2021, there were 550 cigarette butts and in April 2021 there were 716, the report said. The spring and fall cleanups were canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Prior to the 2019 smoking ban, volunteers would routinely pick up more than 1,000 cigarette butts from the beaches and dunes during both the spring and fall cleanups, the report pointed out.
The report notes the importance of protecting the shore’s delicate environment and marine life from the harmful chemicals contained in cigarette butts, including heavy metals, such as arsenic, and toxic organic compounds, such as nicotine and hydrocarbons.
“These chemicals can also leach out of the cigarette butt and pose acute toxic effects to aquatic organisms,” according to the report.
The author of the report is Sea Isle Environmental Commission member Maria Andrews, who is the associate director of undergraduate programs for the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
The report also includes written comments from some of the volunteers who participated in the cleanup. Some of the comments concurred with the report’s findings that smaller amounts of cigarette butts are being found on the beaches.
“We did not find any cigarette butts. In prior years the cigarette butts were the most noted piece of trash,” one volunteer wrote.
“Surprised not to find a single cigarette butt!” another volunteer wrote, using an exclamation point for emphasis.
Each year, Sea Isle is one of the shore communities that participate in beach sweeps in the spring and fall organized by Clean Ocean Action, a state environmental organization.
Sea Isle’s cleanup volunteers catalog the types of trash and debris that are found. The information is sent to Clean Ocean Action as part of a statewide database from beach sweeps at shore towns across New Jersey.
The total amount of trash and litter – 4,221 pieces – collected in Sea Isle during April’s beach cleanup was up from 3,563 in October 2021. But overall, Sea Isle is on a downward trend in the amount of trash overall in recent years.
For instance, there were 8,615 pieces of trash and debris removed during the beach cleanup in October 2019 and 7,318 in April 2018.
The Sea Isle City Environmental Commission cleanup report for April 9, 2022, is available at https://seaislenews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/05/Clean-up-sum-4_9_2022.pdf
