Shell museum hosts post-holiday cleanup on beaches
Following the festivities of the Fourth of July, about a dozen people volunteered their time the next morning to help clean up trash and debris on the causeway left behind by holiday revelers.
The Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum facilitated The Morning After Mess Beach Clean-Up Day on July 5 from 8 to 10 a.m. on the Sanibel Causeway Islands, in partnership with Keep Lee County Beautiful. The county non-profit also organized cleanups on Bunche Beach and Fort Myers Beach.
“As far as I know, this is the first time that we’ve done this specific cleanup,” Rebecca Mensch, a marine biologist at the museum, said. “We’ve been facilitators for some of their other cleanups.”
She noted that it was previously proposed that the museum be a facilitator for this event.
“It’s something that we’ve just been keeping on our radar,” Mensch said.
Volunteers from throughout the county met staffers at the museum’s Mollusks on the Move van.
“It was 10 people,” she said. “About half were from Sanibel and knew the museum.”
The group covered both causeway islands, picking up 85 pounds of garbage.
“The biggest things we found were cigarette butts, bottle caps – both metal and plastic – and just miscellaneous little bits of plastic packaging,” Mensch said.
Most of the packaging was small pieces that likely just blew away from revelers.
“Not things that are blatantly left on purpose,” she said.
The group did find 10 pairs of shoes.
“There was a pair of sneakers with socks,” Mensch said. “All manner of different shoes, so that was weird.”
Easily, several thousand people were enjoying the beaches on July 4. The group observed five pickup trucks of garbage end up in the proper receptacles, which was properly disposed of by county staff.
“We were all really impressed with how little work there was to do,” she said.
“We were really impressed with how citizens cleaned up after themselves,” Mensch added.
As for the 85 pounds the group did collect, they are proud of it.
“We’re really glad we were able to keep that out of the waterways,” she said.
Mensch noted that staff is interested in facilitating the cleanup again.
“I know Keep Lee County Beautiful is working on other after-day cleanups and we absolutely want to be involved with all of those,” she said. “It’s all of our responsibility to clean up after ourselves and others.”
Keep Lee County Beautiful organized the cleanups to mitigate the amount of debris that ends up in oceans after holiday celebrations. The group supplied bags, gloves and water for the volunteers.
“It’s important to keep public beaches clean,” Dorrie Hipschman, executive director of the museum, said. “We need to eliminate plastic and trash in the ocean, and that starts at the beach.”
The next planned cleanup is the International Coastal Cleanup on Sept. 15.
For more information or to get involved, contact 239-395-2233 or rmensch@shellmuseum.org.