Our Daily Ocean: Day 96

After 11 days, my husband and oldest son are back from their vacation to Alaska and back to helping do our 20 minute beach clean ups!!  Since they were gone so long, they missed out on Hurricane Irene and our record breaking clean up on Day 95 at Access 17. In case you missed it, my daughter, Bonnie and I picked up 2,026 cigarette butts!!  Naturally, my husband was bummed that he missed that and wanted to see if we could beat that record.  We didn't beat the record... but surprisingly we came CLOSE!!  This clean up marks the 2nd largest pick up we've ever had!!!  

Since we felt like we left A LOT behind on Day 95, we made the decision to go back to Access 17.  Low and behold the mess was still there, but with it was leftovers from Labor Day beach goers.  One of the greatest things about being at the beach around  AT sundown-- we made it to the beach fairly late... around 7:30 PM and the sunset was A LOT earlier than we expected-- is that it is completely obvious what things have no ownership.  Boogie boards to water bottles... we found them last night.  By the way, the Wrightsville Beach Sea Turtle Project is wrapping up their season... that means their morning walks for turtle tracks and talkin' trash are nearing an end for the season.  While the numbers are still coming in, they've picked up an astonishing 663 grocery sized bags full of litter from WB.  If you haven't checked in on their blog in awhile, go stop by! :) Wrightsville Beach-- Keep It Clean

Every 20 minute beach clean up we do, I weigh the amount of litter we pick up (minus boogie boards and chairs) for The Daily Ocean Community Count.  After weighing last night's haul, we've officially picked up over 200 pounds of litter off of Wrightsville Beach!!  WOW!!!  Talk about having proof that taking a little bit of time to clean up our world can make a HUGE difference :)  

20 minutes on September 5, 2011 at Access 17

Litter by weight: 6 lbs 14.6 oz

Cigarette butts: 1,879

Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach, NC in 96 days:

32,356