July 1 Clean Sweep: A New Record!
On this past July 1st, 30 enthusiastic people came to the Hanford Bay beach early on that hot Saturday morning to help clean the beach. Not only were there Hanford Bay residents, but some visiting family members who decided to help.
Before they set out on their mission, a New York State DEC specialist with over thirty years of experience in water quality improvement shared with the group confirmation that Lake Erie has extremely high levels of plastics pollution. He told the group that what they were about to do was an important step in helping to reduce the amount of microplastic waste in the area. He confirmed what has previously been reported on this website that microplastics may be harming our health and the wildlife.
After hearing some guidance on what to collect during the sweep, the group set out with their buckets to cover the entire length of the beach.
At the beach end of the Moran Right-of-Way, several collection bins were ready to receive whatever the “Sweepers” brought back.
After some time, the “Sweepers” began to return with their bounty. The variety and the amounts were amazing such as these items besides the plastics: Tires, balloons, bottles, construction materials, rubber products, footwear, and cigarette filters which contain microplastics! Many metal items were collected and some of them were sharp enough to cut people’s feet!
With the help of the Baykeepers, each person sorted out what was found and put the items into the bins.
The day after the sweep, some of the Baykeepers and others spent hours sorting, weighing, cataloging the materials and then reporting the results to the Ocean Conservancy which works with millions of volunteers around the world to improve the health of the ocean and other bodies of water such as the Great Lakes.
The results: 1960 items removed from the beach that weighed 243.9 pounds! This is an astounding change from last year when 34 pounds were collected. Here are some highlights of what was collected: 619 plastic/foam pieces, 86 plastic straws/stirrers, 98 food wrappers, 241 pieces of small plastic waste, 261 pieces of metal, paper, etc. of other waste items, 2 tires and 23 toys.
The Hanford Baykeepers sincerely thank everyone who participated during the sweep on July 1 and also during the sorting day on July 2nd.
Another Clean Sweep will take place in September. Once we have picked a date, we will post details about that sweep in the Upcoming Events section of this website.
