More than 40 volunteers gathered on the east end of St. Thomas Saturday morning to take part in a worldwide event – cleaning the world’s shorelines one beach at a time.
The volunteers represented a wide range of organizations: the St. Thomas East End Reserves, the Environmental Association St.Thomas St. John, the Virgin Islands Marine Advisory Service, Ivanna Eudora Kean High school, the Nature Conservancy, the Ocean Conservancy, the Caribbean Lionfish Response, V.I. Waste Management Authority, the Red Hook Community Alliance and the V.I. Conservation Society.
According to Jason Budsan, president of the V.I. Conservation Society, the volunteers collected data along with the trash, keeping a running count on the debris that others islanders chose to toss ijnto the ocean and coastal areas. Items collected included plastic bags, bottles, caps, aluminum cans, cigarette butts, glass bottles, paper and used tires.
"Plastic bags were a real problem to our marine sea life because it takes over 1,000 years to break apart and it ends up in food cycle of fish, turtles and other marine life, including ours," Budsan said.
The local effort was part of an international effort. For the past 28 years the Ocean Conservancy holds annual coastal cleanup weeks around the world, collecting data to inspire local volunteers, policy makers and general public on the need to help protect oceans and coastal areas. In 2013, 648,015 volunteers in 92 countries picked up more than 12.3 million pounds of trash worldwide for the Coastal Cleanup.
Saturday’s event was one of many across the territory in the past few weeks.
The coastal cleanup will continue from 8:30 am to noon Oct. 28 at Mandahl/Tutu Bay.
More information is available by contacting Dalma Simon at east.activities@gmail.com, www.eastvi.org or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/eastactivities/.