SEA BRIGHT – Mark Woldseth of Rumson and his 15-year old son Cash scoured the sandy beach for broken glass beer bottles, pieces of plastic, and tiny cigarette butts as part of Clean Ocean Action’s annual beach sweep on Saturday.
“It’s great to really come back and see newer people and young kids like my son helping out,” said Mark Woldseth, who has been serving as the local beach captain for two decades. “Because of Beach Sweeps, I think the beaches are getting a lot cleaner,” he said.
On Saturday, nearly 4,000 volunteers fanned out along the New Jersey shore from Essex County to Cape May County to participate in the 30th annual spring Clean Ocean Action Beach Sweep.
Saturday with son McDonagh. Photo by Patricia Hart Zachman
In Sea Bright, local school children from Rumson Fair Haven Regional High School, Rumson Country Day and Forrestdale Middle School donned warm clothing and gloves. They arrived at the beach at 9 a.m. and worked until lunchtime, picking garbage out of the beach grass, walking along the tideline, looking everywhere for things that didn’t belong.
“It is astonishing to see what the Beach Sweeps have become after 30 years. From 70 volunteers in Sandy Hook in 1985 to nearly 4,000 volunteers in 2015,” said Cindy Zipf, COA executive director.
Beach captains documented what they collected. The information was shared with COA and catalogued.
At Sandy Hook beach alone, volunteers collected 6,265 food and candy wrappers, 8,289 plastic pieces, 3,126 straws and stirrers, 2,301 foam pieces, 1,339 shopping bags, and 1,680 beverage and soda bottles, according to COA.
For many years, and especially after Super Storm Sandy, local residents have taken it upon themselves to clean up their neighborhood beaches because so much debris washed up on shore. Some of the most outrageous items they removed were old toilet seats and giant tires. Cash Woldseth recalled how difficult it was to pull the tire to the trash pile. “My friends and I had to drop the tire over a rock wall to where the other garbage was, but it rolled off it and into the street in front of a truck.”
The event kicked off on Saturday with a rally and press conference on Sandy Hook with COA organizers, Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, business leaders and volunteers. “Enabling volunteers to become citizen scientists throughout the cleanup turns this one day of service into a lifetime of data,” said Catie Tobin, COA marine science education coordinator. “Clean Ocean Action may organize the cleanup and compile the data, but it is truly the Beach Captains and the volunteers that are the heart and soul of the program,”
Clean Ocean Action’s objective has been to not only rid the beaches of garbage, but also to inform the public about the negative side effects littering has on wildlife as well as the ocean. Events such as Beach Sweeps allow COA to achieve these goals. “I personally see less trash,” said Cash Woldseth. “I feel these really benefit the environment and also inspire others to do it on their own.”
– By Ashley Broussel
