More than 100 volunteers flocked to Marsh Island days after its much anticipated grand re-opening to remove tons of debris from its shoreline.
These four full days of trash pickup were a collaboration between the Center for Coastal Studies’ Beach Brigade, Operation Clean Sweep, Buzzards Bay Coalition, Fairhaven-Acushnet Land Preservation Trust, Be the Solution to Pollution, and the municipalities of New Bedford and Fairhaven. A US EPA Southern New England Environmental Program (SNEP) Watershed Implementation Grant was awarded to Center for Coastal Studies to conduct marine debris cleanups on inhabited and uninhabited islands in southern Massachusetts.
Volunteers hauled large objects such as tires, oil booms, and sections of docks and collected smaller items such as cups, water bottles, straws, plastic bags, and nips in categorized sacks to be weighed then transferred to a large dumpster. Other items of note collected in vast quantities: fish netting, line, and rope. Volunteers used pickers as well as got on their hands and knees and manually separated small plastics from the shoreline dirt.
