Our Daily Ocean: Day 122

Today, was an absolutely gorgeous perfect day.  81˚ and nothing but blue skies.  I, of course, thought the beach would be completely packed, but when we got there the wind was blowing so strong that I questioned even getting out of my car.  81˚ temperatures tugged at me and we hit the beach at Access 43!  Since the wind was ripping across the sand, the beach appeared to be completely empty...

We immediately made a beeline to the dunes for some protection from the wind (and the sand that was ripping across the beach).  Obviously, that's what everyone else had decided to do!  The dunes provided enough buffer that the winds were hardly even noticeable.  While walking around the dunes, we found lots of very old plastics.... like a styrofoam take out container that began to crumble as soon as I touched it... and this plastic bottle cap that broke into pieces as soon as I grabbed it...

Every day, I strive to reduce the amount of plastics that I use.  I do so for a great number of reasons... one being I don't want to contribute to the ever growing problem of plastic pollution and well... quite frankly... it's just not safe.  Stiv Wilson wrote a really great article "7 Dangerous Lies About Plastic" that EVERYONE should read.

Interesting fact time!  In 122 days, doing 20 minute beach clean ups.... we've picked up 40,827 cigarette butts off of Wrightsville Beach.  That averages out to picking up nearly 17 cigarette butts every minute! YIKES!  Houston Wrightsville Beach: We have a problem.  The hearing for the proposed smoking ban on Wrightsville Beach is exactly a week away.  Please mark your calendars for March 8.  The meeting starts at 6 PM.... and we need everyone that supports our efforts to show up to the meeting.  We can do this TOGETHER!! :)

20 minutes on March 1, 2012 at Access 43

Litter by weight: 1 lb 4 oz
Cigarette butts: 432

Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach, NC in 122 days:

40,827