Our Daily Ocean: Day 137

Since Tuesday,  the Wrightsville Beach strand has been covered in A LOT of reeds and such from the marsh grass getting a good clean out from a heavy downpour last weekend.  No matter which way you look down the beach... all that can be seen is a large line of organic debris.  To give you an idea of what is all over Wrightsville Beach, here's a picture that I took on Tuesday at Access 36:

I had originally planned on doing a 20 minute clean up on Tuesday with my friend Bonnie, but felt somewhat overwhelmed by everything on the beach.  I looked at the enormity of the wrack line and immediately gave up.  I guess it was just one of those days.  So on Thursday, I returned to Wrightsville Beach determined to make a dent in at least a little bit of all that organic debris at Access 16.  BUT... what I quickly found out is that there wasn't much to find.  Instead, what was to be found was being left right on the beach by the days beach-goers.

When I came upon this pile of 9 cigarette butts, I couldn't get over it.  Yes, I have picked up a sh*tload of cigarette butts off of Wrightsville Beach... but I can still never get over it when I see PILES of cigarette butts on the beach.  Then when I do the math, I realize that as Sara is counting and tallying the number of cigarette butts she finds on her smoke-free Santa Monica beach during her 20 minute The Daily Ocean clean ups... she is only finding an average of 9 cigarette butts PER 20 minutes.  I picked up 9 in about one second.

To update everyone on the Smoke-Free Wrightsville Beach effort, the petitions signed by WB residents have been turned over to the New Hanover County Board of Elections for the signatures to be verified.  According to the Star-News, at the WB Board of Alderman meeting last night the smoking ban wasn't even on the agenda... but it couldn't be ignored.  

"At the board's Thursday night meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Susan Collins, who opposed the beach smoking ban in March, said the town had received 17,723 emails and 7,723 phone calls from January to March, many regarding the possible smoking ban."

I would personally like to thank everyone for emailing, writing personal letters and getting involved in this effort!  Together we are making a difference!! :)

20 minutes on May 10, 2012 at Access 16

Litter by weight: 14.3 oz

Cigarette butts: 163

Straws: 8   

Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach, NC in 137 days:

44,850