Folly street sweep nets nearly 12,000 pieces of litter
by Jenny Peterson | Staff Writer
While many beach sweeps focus on picking up litter on the shoreline, a recent Folly Beach sweep expanded the cleanup to the streets.
Called “Toby’s Folly Island Wide Spring Clean,” the sweep was inspired by the cartoon sea turtle who “awards” businesses each month for picking up litter around their property, an effort by the Folly Association of Business (FAB).
Hundreds of volunteers on April 3 canvassed the entire span of Ashley Avenue from the Lighthouse Inlet to the Folly Beach County Park and on the streets from the Folly River to beach accesses. A small group also walked along the beach collecting litter. They were each given a mesh bag, gloves and pickers as well as a data collection tool to record the amount and type of trash collected.
The sheer amount of litter picked up was sobering: in two hours, 225 volunteers picked up 11,965 pieces of trash mainly on Folly Beach roadways.
“I’ve done many sweeps in Francis Marion Forest and they’ve come up with a lot of debris, but for an island that’s 6-7 miles long, to come up with that much debris in just two hours of doing it was huge,” said Vanessa Oltmann, a member of the Folly Association of Businesses who spearheaded the event.
The exact amount of trash—and the type of litter that was collected the most—was documented using a smartphone data collection app called the Litter Free Digital Journal.
Most of the litter came from cigarette butts/filters (2,682 pieces), plastic food wrappers (1,362 pieces) and glass bottles and fragments (989 pieces). There was also a significant number of aluminum cans (579 pieces) and plastic straws (433) collected. Sixty-eight percent of the litter was sourced from plastic, Oltmann reports.
Items collected that are currently banned on Folly Beach included Styrofoam containers (276 pieces) and plastic retail bags (158 bags).
The litter data review was done by the South Carolina Aquarium conservation team and reported back to Oltmann. Data outlining the types of litter found on Folly can be used to draft legislation in the future, Oltmann said.
“We are able to present that data to the legislature for different (item) bans or see where we need to focus our litter programs, whether it’s on the beach or in the town,” Oltmann said. “We found cigarette butts throughout the beach, which is something that even though we have a ban on it, will always be a fight. We found a lot of alcohol bottles and cans and plastic retail bags all in the shrubs and alongside the road.”
Volunteers also made an unusual discovery: A car from the 1940s, buried in the marsh off Ninth Street West.
“It was very rusted out and fiddler crabs were crawling all over it,” Oltmann said. “Probably due to a lot of erosion, the car finally surfaced. We found a grill and brakes.”
Oltmann, whose goal to have a street sweep was finally realized, said she hopes to do another large-scale sweep in the fall following the busy summer season and then hold regular smaller sweeps monthly focusing on a different area of Folly Beach starting next spring.
“I am passionate about litter and this is a way for the community to work together with city officials and different organizations,” Oltmann said. “We had people travel all the way from Summerville to help with this and we even had tourists who signed up to do it. They were going to be here anyway and emailed me and I said, ‘the more, the merrier.’ It was really tremendous that people came out and showed how much they love and care for Folly. Even the aquarium (staff) was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is huge,’ and they do sweeps all the time. This was big.”
Folly Beach businesses showed their appreciation for the volunteers; local restaurants gave discounts to volunteers following the sweep as a thank you, including Low Life, the Washout, Planet Follywood, the Crab Shack, Sunset Cay Ship Store and Tidal Moon Coffee.
This year, the City of Folly Beach also launched an additional effort to help combat litter.
“In terms of new (litter collection) efforts by the City, we did establish a Bucket Brigade this year,” said Aaron Pope, city administrator with the City of Folly Beach. “It is a program for Folly residents to come by (City Hall) and pick up a bucket, a grabber and a Bucket Brigade volunteer T-shirt which they can use for private litter pick up on their own, at any time.”
The Bucket Brigade also allows volunteers to log on and track debris through the MyCoast App. For more information, email parkfollybeach@reefparking.com.
The Folly Beach Public Safety Department has beach patrol staff picking up litter on the beach daily, said Chief Andrew Gilreath.
“We issue tickets (for littering) when we can. That said, it is a difficult violation to enforce as the officer has to observe it happen in real time, most folks aren’t throwing things out of the car, etc. with a police car right there,” he said.
Oltmann said chipping away at the litter problem on Folly Beach couldn’t be accomplished without the help of the hundreds of volunteers who came out to the spring sweep.
“I know what hard work it is,” Oltmann said. “To all the people who were involved, I tell them, ‘a big huge thank you’ and that Toby loves them for keeping Folly clean!”
Follow Toby the Turtle on Facebook for updates about future beach sweeps.
Top Ten Sources of Litter on Folly Beach Streets
A recent Folly Beach street sweep by 225 volunteers collected nearly 12,000 pieces of debris and litter. Below are the top sources of litter, in terms of the number of pieces collected.
Cigarettes/filters 2,682
Plastic food wrappers 1,362
Glass bottles/fragments 989
Paper/cardboard 982
Plastic fragments 828
Other plastic 656
Beverage cans/aluminum 579
Plastic caps/lids 466
Plastic straws 433
Building material 315
