It was trying to rain off and on all morning, but a dozen or so hardy souls gathered in Lopez Village to get bags and trash grabbers before heading off to various parts of the island to collect beach and road trash. When the group reassembled about 3 hours later, they filled Nick Teague's truck with a dozen or more bags containing a little bit of everything! Beverage and fast-food containers, bags and wrappers of all sizes and shape, and huge quantities of polystyrene ranging from chunks as big as a breadbox down to individual pellets. Everyone found a surprising number of popped balloons and shotgun casings, as well as some toys, odd containers and parts of who knows what, and plenty of pieces of polypropelene rope. But the all-pervading theme of the morning was plastic, plastic, plastic! Micro- or macro- it's on every beach in our islands, and it just sits there until it is removed.
The good news is that as of April 22, expanded poly-styrene will be banned from the San Juans for take-out food containers. The new Lopez market (which just opened yesterday,) not only will be complying with the ban, but they also seem to have removed polystyrene plates and cups from the picnic supplies section of the store. Bravo!
The folks in the photo above include BLM Manager Nick Teague, Lopez Land Bank Steward Tim Clark, BLM intern Kirsten Anderson, who organized today's event, and some members of the Lopez Island Youth Conservation Corps, (including Josef Blanc-Ridings from this years B.W. class - sorry Josef - I didn't realize you were half-hidden when I snapped the pic.)
While I was collecting trash along the Fisherman Bay tombolo, two different groups of people came up to ask what I was doing, accepted an empty plastic bag from me, and collected their own bagful of trash. Every little bit helps!
Susan
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