The Results Are In!
Turn the Tide volunteers gather for a post-cleanup snap. Photo by John Saponara.
This past Saturday, Engines for Change and NYCH2O rallied the masses and cleaned up Plumb Beach in South Brooklyn, NY. Located at the mouth of the Gerritsen Inlet, Plumb Beach is a notorious collection point for ocean debris. As part of the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup Day, around 150 of our finest volunteers devoted their Saturday morning to making our beaches a better place.
Motorcyclists simultaneously pick up trash, sort recyclables, and record data. Photo by Peter Domorak.
To date, Engines for Change has received data from 18 volunteer groups, including those who submitted their data directly to the Ocean Conservancy. And after running the preliminary numbers, we’re ready to give you a little insight on what we found:
Overall, our volunteers collected 101 bags of trash and 34 bags of recycling in a ~3-hour timeframe. These bags weighed approximately 707lb and 372lb, respectively, or about half a ton of debris in total. Not bad for a sunny Saturday morning!
By far the biggest pollutant at Plumb Beach was cigarette butts. Our volunteers collected almost 3,000 individual cigarette butts during our cleanup. This is in line with the Ocean Conservancy’s global findings from previous years; cigarette butts have been the top international pollutant for the last three years running. Not-so-fun fact: cigarette butts contain cellulose acetate, a form of plastic that takes at least a decade to decompose. So, not only do cigarettes harm people, but their remnants also can toxify soil and impede nearby plant growth.
Volunteers hold handfuls of cigarette butts. Cigarette currently are the #1 pollutant in the world. Photo by Peter Domorak.
Other major pollutants from the beach cleanup are nearly all plastic materials. Our suggestion? Recycle from the onset. Plastics can only be recycled if they’re in decent condition and if they’re sorted properly. So, although we sorted our recyclables and brought them to our local facility, there’s no guarantee that what we collected can be processed and repurposed. The earlier you can recycle, the better. And the more plastic you can cut out of your daily routine - well, that’s best of all.
We know there was a lot of trash collected on Saturday that isn’t accounted for in this data. If you gathered data and haven’t submitted it yet, please email it to enginesforchange@gmail.com. In the meantime, take a look at our 10 Ten Pollutants below, check out photos from the day in our Gallery section, and feel free to reach out to get the full dataset.
Top 10 Pollutants from Turn the Tide Cleanup
No. Item Total
1 Cigarette butts 2955
2 Plastic Pieces 1005
3 Miscellaneous Trash 909
4 Bottle caps (plastic) 871
5 Food Wrappers 769
6 Plastic Bottles 353
7 Plastic Bags 353
8 Straws, Stirrers 312
9 Foam Pieces 187
10 Cups, Plates (Plastic) 174
Thank you again for everyone who came out on Saturday - it was a pleasure working with you!
Turn the Tide’s motorcycle contingent poses for a photo. This is a solid crew. Photo by John Saponara.