Team (8th graders) Collects, Tracks Harmful Beach Trash - Happy Earth Day!

[Breeze54]

Team Collects, Tracks Harmful Beach Trash

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/asseenon5/15958501/detail.html

8th-Graders Help Blue Ocean Society

UPDATED: 2:50 pm EDT April 22, 2008

BOSTON --

For seven years, the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation has been tracking the trash along coastal New Hampshire. On Earth Day 2008, they got help from hundreds of eighth-graders.

NewsCenter 5's David Brown reported that the students scoured the beach with trash bags in one hand and data cards in the other to track all the trash.



"At every clean up people not only pick up the litter they find, but they also record what they find on data cards. It is a standardized data card so we can get a lot of information on the trend in marine pollution," said Jennifer Kennedy, of the Blue Ocean Marine Conservation.

Every cigarette butt from Hampton Beach, all the fishing rope from Rye Harbor, and all the caps, lids and cups have been collected from an 11-mile stretch of beach.

"Trash can be extremely dangerous. Not only is it unsightly to have on your beaches, but how dangerous it is for our marine life," said Patty Adell, of the Blue Ocean Marine Conservation.

Marine life can get tangled in discarded plastic or poisoned by the trash. The eighth-graders were learning about the link between what people do on the beach to aquatic life people may never see.

"There's a lot of rope and a lot of plastic bags," student Lauren Bartlett said. "I think that we should be better to the earth and not be throwing things on the beach."

Good for those kids! I think that's awesome! :D

[kestrel91316]

1. Here in LA, Heal the Bay sponsors all sorts of beach cleanups:

http://www.healthebay.org/volunteer/cleanups/default.asp

The real value here is not the cleanups themselves, it's the educational opportunity.

I talked to a young hispanic girl (maybe 10) at Sepulveda Basin last year who was very well-informed and concerned about pollution of oceans and watercourses because she had been on a beach cleanup with her school. She was able to help educate her parents, who didn't speak any english and so didn't have as much awareness of the problem.

[Breeze54]

2. Seems like both benefit.

It's good to know there are programs like this all over the country, cleaning up the waterways.