Beach Sweep/River Sweep nets more than 4,000 Cigarette butts, 66 bags of Trash
By Lorne Chambers | Editor
Every year thousands of people come out to Folly Beach and put their butts on our beach. Unfortunately they’re not nice butts. And unfortunately they don’t take their butts with them when they go home.
This year at the 2015 Beach Sweep/River Sweep held on Saturday, Sept. 19, more than 4,000 cigarette butts were picked up along with 66 bags of trash, 410 food wrappers, 131 pieces of glass, among many other things. Although the final data was not completed by press time, overall the amount of trash was up from the 51 bags that were picked up last year.
Organized by S.C. Sea Grant Consortium in partnership with S.C. Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR), the Beach Sweep/River Sweep is the largest one-day litter cleanup of South Carolina’s beaches and waterways. Since 1988, every third Saturday in September thousands of South Carolinians volunteer to clear trash from our beaches, rivers, lakes, marshes, and swamps.
This year 223 volunteers came out to Folly Beach to help with the clean-up. Daniel Hinson of the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium headed up the efforts. He says he had volunteers from MUSC, Holy Cow Yoga, Cub Scout Troop #14, Ashley Hall, Charleston County IT Services, Porter Gaud, Oak Grove Montessori, Charleston Surfrider, and several students from CofC and Charleston Catholic School.
“Beach Sweep/River Sweep is a perfect example of what’s called “Citizen Science” – community volunteers who help their community by projects just like BS/RS, while simultaneously collecting data,” says Hinson. “We then use the data collected to make targeted efforts to curb problematic litter. But the easiest way to help is to simply take your trash with you and be aware of your impact on the environment – ‘Leave nothing but footprints,’ as the saying goes.”
While this was his first year as part of the cleanup efforts, it’s clear that Hinson understood the challenges beach communities face with regards to litter. “While it might be ‘just one cigarette butt’ or ‘just one food wrapper’ to you, you aren’t the only one on the beach,” he says. “It’s not just one person causing all this trash. ‘Pack it in, pack it out’ isn’t just for campers. It’s much easier to take your trash with you than it is to organize over 200 people to come pick it up after you.”
Beyond the food wrappers, cigarette butts and glass, Hinson said they strangest things they found this year were someone’s retainer and parts to a refrigerator.
