Our Daily Ocean: Day 69

When I was a kid, I used to hide (and sometimes throw away) my mom's cigarettes.  It's true.  Thankfully, my mom got the hint and quit smoking somewhere around 20 years ago.  Speaking of 20.  A major milestone in the 20 minute clean ups has been reached...

We've officially passed the 20,000 mark.  YIKES!!  There was a time when I would have never thought that it was possible.  NOW... I wonder what's next??  How many more cigarette butts are we going to pick up??  I'll tell you how many.... as many as it takes for people to get the message.  And a reality that I've come to accept is that it could be thousands more...  
Maybe we'll hit 50,000?  Think about it.  It may have taken us 69 clean ups to pass the 20,000 mark, but-- since I started this project at the beginning of August-- the majority of those clean ups were done off-season.  In fact, 47 of the 69 clean ups were done between October and April.  Hmmm... during the filming of my FilterForGood Film, I had 11,332 cigarette butts.  Since December, we have added over 9,000 cigarette butts to the tally.  Seriously, I count them all and I can't get over it.  My brain is practically spinning.... and I can't help but wonder what the 2 busiest beach months will bring??    

*sigh*  A lot more of everything, that I am sure of.

20 minutes on May 27, 2011 at Access 29

Litter by weight: 3 lbs 9.1 oz
Cigarette butts: 658

Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach, NC in 69 days:

20,574

Our Daily Ocean: Day 45

Every time we do a beach clean up... I post all of the pictures that I take on my Facebook page.  On a photo from Day 42, Sarah N. told me about how Camel makes a cigarette that has a little plastic "flavor" pellet inside the filter. I was immediately intrigued... especially knowing that I had picked up some of the cigarettes that she told me about.  So today... when we got home from Wrightsville Beach and I was counting all of the cigarette butts that we found at Access 19... you can imagine my excitement when I saw this:

I immediately put it to the side and kept counting butts... then when I finished... I opened it up:

And found the little plastic "flavor" pellet that Sarah had told me about...

Insane... right?!?  ...I'm honestly at a loss for words.

20 minutes on February 19, 2011
Litter by weight: 1 lb 2.4 oz
Cigarette butts: 131

 Total amount of cigarette butts picked up off of Wrightsville Beach, NC in 45 days:

14,524