Tag: trash clean up

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Earth Day 2025

Earth from space appearing like a "blue marble."
Photo courtesy of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).

Happy Earth Day!

I know things may not feel happy regarding the environment.

Here’s how things may feel to you right now: like an actual dumpster fire.

Bird's eye view of a dumpster fire at night.
Photo by Toms River Fire Dept on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Or this might describe how everything feels:

Person with Starbucks paper bag over their head, holding a globe in a plastic bag, with money in their hands and flying in the air around them. Fire in the background.
Photo by fikry anshor on Unsplash.

But I’m asking you not to give up hope.

We have to keep trying.

“You dodge despair by not taking the deluge of problems full-bore. You focus on what can work, what can help, or what you can do, and you seize it, and then – you don’t let go…That’s what hope is: the belief that things can get better. The world belongs to people who don’t give up.” -Carl Safina, Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth’s Last Dinosaur

What can you do?

You can do any of the following at any time. You don’t need a special day to do them!

Love.

Back in my 2019 Earth Day article, I wrote: “Love the Earth. Then help spread that love.” Let’s spread love to every person and creature on Earth, too. We need it now more than ever!

Digital art of a girl with leafy green hair hugging planet Earth in a warm embrace.
Digital art by Gianluca from Pixabay.

Plant a tree.

Arbor Day is Friday, April 25, 2025. And if you can’t plant one on Arbor Day, go plant a tree any day!

“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now.” -Proverb

Photo of a woman wearing a hijab and a female child planting a tree together, people in background.
Photo by Eyoel Kahssay on Unsplash.

Clean up trash.

Go to a trash clean-up event. If there isn’t one, pick an area where you like to hike or walk, and bring a trash bag with you. Bring some friends!

Man in blue shirt bent over, picking up plastic and trash on a sandy beach.
Photo by OCG Saving The Ocean on Unsplash.

Gather.

Get together with like-minded people. We all must come together and understand the big, important challenges when it comes to the environment.

“To be on the same page, you must first read from the same book.” —Joshua Fields Millburn

Tanzanians painting a poster with a tree about preserving the environment.
Photo by bradford zak on Unsplash.

Get out in nature.

Go for a walk or a hike. Bring your dog! Travel to the closest waterfall or lake and take in its beauty. Jog in the park, play on a playground, or ride a bike. It doesn’t matter where or how. Just get outside. Take in nature, breathe fresh air.

“I really believe that nature is everybody’s mother – and I think our disconnection from it is the reason for so many of the problems we have now. We haven’t experienced nature, neither its beauty nor its nourishment.” Alice Waters, Coming To My Senses

Man in yellow coat, in the woods, looking up, admiring the trees.
Photo by Etienne Swanepoel on Unsplash.

Learn.

We are the only species that intentionally harms their own habitat. We need to change that. We need to understand that pollution only destroys our health; that plastic production is growing exponentially while recycling is a lie; that biodiversity is essential for the health of our planet; that the climate crisis is here and present and has never been a hoax. There are so many solutions out there, but we cannot wait for governments and corporations to do the right thing, because they won’t. That’s why we all need to learn more about these topics.

Donate.

Giving feels good. Whether you’re donating money to your favorite cause or place of worship, donating used towels to the local pet shelter, donating time to a soup kitchen, planting trees with a local college, giving blood at a blood drive, or building houses with Habitat for Humanity, it all feels good!

“The surest path to contentment is generosity. Giving forces us to recognize all we possess and all we have to offer. It allows us to find fulfillment and purpose in helping others.” -Joshua Becker

Advocate.

Advocate for the environment. Tell lawmakers and corporations that you want change. The best way to inform them is to affect their bottom line and stop rampant consumerism. For example, if we all stopped buying plastic straws tomorrow and stopped patronizing restaurants that serve them, the production of plastic straws would drop dramatically. The same with fast fashion (aka cheap clothing), new cars, and cheap plastic toys.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

Use less plastic.

Avoid buying plastic items or items with excessive plastic packaging. There are so. many. alternatives!

Photo of a light-up globe on a black background.
Photo by Onno Blaauw on Unsplash.

“Each and every one of us holds the power to create change through the everyday choices that we make: what we choose to eat, what we purchase, how we get to work, who we vote for, which businesses we support. We all have a role to play. But, we all must begin to act and act now.” -Geoff Blackwell and Ruth Hobday, Human Nature: Planet Earth In Our Time, Twelve Photographers Address the Future of the Environment

Small things matter.

Sometimes we can spread love through food. I’m baking Earth Day cookies and bringing them to work to share with my coworkers tomorrow. Of course, I’ll save some for my son, too!

Leave me a comment below to let me know how you celebrated Earth Day! Thanks for reading, please share and subscribe!

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Plastic Art Project #2, “Mermaid’s Grotto”

Mermaid's Grotto, plastic pieces to make the collected items with the mermaid doll at center. Blue, aqua, black background.
“Mermaid’s Grotto,” by Marie Cullis, 2023. Plastic pieces collected from the beach in Duck, North Carolina. Background is acrylic paint on wood board. Copyright Marie Cullis.

About

This was my second plastic art project from beach trash my family collected. We collected the pieces in 2022 and I created this plastic ocean scene in the fall of 2023. Like my previous piece, some of the items are highly recognizable, like the goggles, plastic fork, bottle caps, dental picks, straws, and of course, a broken mermaid doll. Measures 24″ x 24″.

Picking Up Beach Trash

Sunset, orange sun casting an orange glow over the blue ocean, with an orange and pink ombre sky. Pool in foreground but darkened.
Sunset from our balcony in Duck, North Carolina, June 2022.

My family vacationed on the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 2022, traveling to many of the towns up and down the barrier islands. But we stayed in Duck, North Carolina, which is where many of our beach walks and swim days happened. As usual, we picked up trash on all of our walks. When we returned to our rental, I saved as many pieces as I could for a future art piece and washed them. These are a few of the trash piles resulting from the bags of trash we picked up and emptied:

Pile of collected trash.
Pile of collected trash.
Pile of collected trash.

I had quite a bit to sort through! We found several big pieces, but we found many more small pieces of plastic on this end of the island. Especially in the less populated areas of the beach. Those are wonderful to both get off the beach and to use in plastic art projects.

Items We Didn’t Keep

Since we had a long way to travel and a small car, I had to limit what I carted home to a single bag. So, first I decided to recycle all I could – water bottles, soda bottles, paper, and plastic from products like the Sun In and Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen. I opted to throw away very dirty pieces, socks and degraded plastic films. We left behind beach toys for the next family and kept a few too, like these diving toys:

Toy missile diving weights, orange and green.

These barnacled and very dirty snorkel goggles were super cool, but there was no way to clean them enough to travel home with. So I took multiple photos of them:

  • Barnacled and very dirty snorkle goggles, yellow frame with clear and frosted plastic parts.
  • Barnacled and very dirty snorkle goggles, yellow frame with clear and frosted plastic parts.
  • Barnacled and very dirty snorkle goggles, yellow frame with clear and frosted plastic parts.
  • Barnacled and very dirty snorkle goggles, yellow frame with clear and frosted plastic parts.
  • Barnacled and very dirty snorkle goggles, yellow frame with clear and frosted plastic parts.

Another cool item that I didn’t keep was this work or fishing glove because it had so many things stuck to it!

Fishermen's glove, yellow and black.

My Process

Plastic trash laid out on a pink kitchen towel after having been washed again. Goggles, bottle caps, straws, and many other colorful plastics.

I washed everything again when I returned home and dried it thoroughly before storing it for my art project (it was over a year before I had time to work on the art project).

Plastic mermaid doll, green hair and tail.

When I found the broken mermaid doll, I immediately knew this would be the center of my piece. Inspired by The Little Mermaid, this piece of art came together using plastic pieces that look like everyday items, as if she’d collected the items from shipwrecks. Plastic caps became cups and kitchen items. I turned candy wrappers into purses. Other plastic pieces became tools or beauty items, such as the paintbrush, flower barrette, and mini bubble wands. And of course, I had a piece of a fork – that is, a dinglehopper!

Additionally, plastic parts from fireworks became jellyfish and stars. There is a cellophane sun in the upper right corner. Water bottle caps appear as bubbles. Solo cup pieces became sea plants.

I bought a medium-sized piece of wood, a 24-inch square, at the hardware store. I painted the background with acrylic paint.

Square piece of wood, painted with aqua blues, turquoise, green, and black acrylic paint to look like under the ocean, with the center strokes vertically painted to represent a grotto.

The Final Piece

I used Tacky Glue to attach the pieces. I forgot to take photos as the project progressed, though it came together pretty quickly. In this detail, to right of the mermaid doll, you can “items” stacked on her “shelves” that look like beauty item, kitchen items, and maybe even tools. She’s also holding a “purse” and a “wand”:

Section of the art piece showing the mermaid doll and many small plastic pieces representing items she found in shipwrecks.

In the next detail, to the left of the mermaid doll, you can other items such as a paintbrush, part of a pen, a straw, caps, a Swisher Sweets tip, and a disposable razor handle. Below are a couple of “purses” I made from plastic string and wrappers we found. Above those is a plastic piece that looks like a fish!

Section of the art piece showing the mermaid doll and many small plastic pieces representing items she found in shipwrecks.

The next image, showing the bottom right corner, are larger items I used to create sort of a storage bin of items which includes nylon rope, a juice or milk bottle, straws, bottle caps, broken toys, two pairs of broken glasses, and other miscellaneous plastic parts.

Section of the art piece showing the mermaid doll and many small plastic pieces representing items she found in shipwrecks.

Below, in the left corner, I made sea plants from various plastic items including red and yellow broken Solo cups, foam, nylon rope fragments, coiled keychain, orange and black plastic pieces, and green plastic string pieces that likely came from a beach chair that was falling apart.

Section of the art piece showing long plastic pieces I used to make sea plants.

For these jellyfish, I used the plastic from exploded fireworks and plastic ribbon pieces for the tentacles, and plastic wrappers and film bundled on top to create the bodies.

Close-up of jellyfish made from plastic trash pieces on aqua blue background.

Next

Since I did not use all of the pieces from our Outer Banks trip, I’m saving those for a future art project or teaching project.

My next project is going to be created from items I collected on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, during a holiday weekend. Stay tuned for my article on that Plastic Art project!

Feel free to check out my Plastic Art Projects page for other projects that people have done. If you have a plastic trash art piece you’d like to share, please leave me a comment below! Thank you for reading, please share and subscribe!

Copyright © Marie Cullis, 2023, “Mermaid’s Grotto” art piece. All photos in this article by Marie Cullis.
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Plastic Art Project #1

Plastic trash arranged in an ocean scene, colorful plastics with an aqua and sea blue background.
Photo of “St. Augustine, Florida 2021” by Marie Cullis.

About

This was my first plastic art project from beach trash I collected. I collected the pieces in 2021 and created this plastic ocean scene in the summer of 2023. Some of the items are highly recognizable, like the toothbrush, plastic spoons, and dental pick. There’s even the rolled end of an old latex condom in there (sanitized, of course). Measures 12″ x 12″.

Picking Up Beach Trash

My family and I have always picked up trash at beaches wherever and whenever we get to visit them. In fact, on our honeymoon, my husband helped me clean up tires and other debris from St. Pete Beach in Florida. We dutifully bag up collected trash and put it in a dumpster or covered trash receptacle. We donate items like unbroken beach toys and usable clothing (after cleaning).

We spent a week at the beach in St. Augustine, Florida in October 2021, and as usual, we collected all sorts of trash and plastic pieces. This time, I cleaned and saved some of it for a future art piece.

I Didn’t Keep Every Piece

First, I separated the undesirable, donatable, recyclable, and other miscellaneous items that I didn’t intend to use in my artwork. This included items such as a glass bottle we found in the surf (since glass is fully recyclable) that had living barnacles attached to it:

We carefully removed the barnacles and put them back in the water. I couldn’t leave a glass bottle in the surf for obvious reasons, so we tried our best to save the creatures.

Other items I didn’t keep for artwork included rusty metal cans, recyclable plastic water bottles, complete beach toys (which I donated), and oversized objects. Additionally, there was a large white blanket (which we washed and donated), a crusty hat brim, and a used vape pen (which, though pretty, I threw away due to concerns about leftover chemicals):

  • Largw white blanket found on the beach sand at night.
    A large white blanket we found on a night walk.
  • A vape pen, white with a rainbow going across, HQD Cuvie Plus.
    Vape pen, pretty but possibly toxic.
  • Black baseball hat brim, covered in sticky sand.
    Baseball hat brim, covered in sticky sand.

Last, I found this unidentifiable gelatinous piece, which I then believed to be plastic but have now discovered that it may have been a washed-up tunicate, colloquially called a ‘sea pork’:1

Gelatinous but dried up unidentifiable piece.

My Process

While we were still on vacation, I rinsed everything I planned to cart home. In groups, I washed all the pieces thoroughly in dish soap and water and then laid them out to dry:

Batch of plastic trash soaking in dish soap and warm water, in a black tub.
Cleaned colorful plastic pieces drying on a black towel.

I began by painting a sea background on a square piece of wood using acrylic paint. Next, I arranged the plastic pieces, starting with the largest ones, and secured them with glue. At first, I didn’t have a clear vision, but as I experimented with the pieces—arranging and rearranging them like a puzzle—a fishing scene gradually emerged. Here’s a progression of the piece:

  • Progression of plastic trash art piece, blue and green sea background, with colorful pieces making up a fisherman, large fish at center, jellyfish, other creatures, and coral reef at bottom.
  • Progression of plastic trash art piece, blue and green sea background, with colorful pieces making up a fisherman, large fish at center, jellyfish, other creatures, and coral reef at bottom.
  • Progression of plastic trash art piece, blue and green sea background, with colorful pieces making up a fisherman, large fish at center, jellyfish, other creatures, and coral reef at bottom.
Progression of plastic trash art piece, blue and green sea background, with colorful pieces making up a fisherman, large fish at center, jellyfish, other creatures, and coral reef at bottom.
Completed art piece by Marie Cullis.

So we have a fisherperson paddling a boat, hauling ‘sea treasures’ in a net behind them, while a giant fish, a jellyfish, and other sea creatures swim below near a coral reef. Last, I took a soda bottle cap, wrote the title on it, and glued it near the top, as if it represented the sun.

Next

Since this was a small board (12″x12″), I did not use all of the trash pieces, so I’ve saved those for a future art project or teaching project!

My next project was created from items I collected in Duck, North Carolina, in the Outer Banks. Read my article on Plastic Art Project #2!

Feel free to check out my Plastic Art Projects page for other projects that people have done. If you have a plastic trash art piece you’d like to share, please leave me a comment below! Thank you for reading, please share and subscribe!

Copyright © Marie Cullis, 2023, “St. Augustine, Florida 2021” art piece. All photos in this article by Marie Cullis.

Footnote:

  1. Article, “The Secret Life of ‘Sea Pork,’ The Organ-Like Blobs on Your Beach,” by Jessica Leigh Hester, atlasobscura.com, May 15, 2019. ↩︎
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Tennessee River Clean-Up!

Nickajack Lake on the Tennessee River, water in foreground and hills at center. Bridge at left. Cloudless blue sky at top.
Nickajack Lake on the Tennessee River on the day of the clean-up. Photo by Marie Cullis.

Last year, I read the book, From the Bottom Up: One Man’s Crusade to Clean America’s Rivers by Chad Pregracke. It was about Living Lands & Waters, the organization established by the author to clean up trash along rivers. His story was super inspiring, especially because I love to clean up trash (and would even do it for a living if I could make that work). This organization, based out of Illinois along the Mississippi River, performs large-scale river clean-ups. Since 1998, they have worked on 25 rivers in 21 states, and have conducted more than 1,100 community clean-ups.

“[Living Lands & Waters] hosts dozens of community river cleanups each year to help watershed conservation efforts with the assistance of thousands of volunteers of all ages who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get dirty – individuals, schools, community organizations, businesses and more!”1

So when I discovered that I could get involved with local clean-ups along the Tennessee River, I was more than excited! I was too late to sign up last fall, but this month, I signed up when an opportunity came up near my area.

This one was hosted by Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful and AFTCO (American Fishing Tackle Company) in partnership with Living Lands & Waters. Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful is a nonprofit that serves as the first Keep America Beautiful affiliate in the nation to focus solely on a river. Their mission is to educate and inspire people to take care of the Tennessee River and show the impact of trash. Their volunteer cleanups are held along the 652-mile Tennessee River and its tributaries, an area spanning seven states!2 

The Experience

I took my family with me. My son enjoyed riding in the boats and meeting people. He really fed off of the energy of the crew, who took time out to make him feel included. I’m proud that he understood why we were there and that he gets why it’s important at such a young age.

My son talking to a crewmember with a dog on a grassy area.
My son making friends with a crewmember of Living Lands & Waters. She had a dog, and he loves dogs, so it was an easy conversation starter. Photo by Marie Cullis.

My son cleaning up trash along a river bank, holding a yellow bag, boat at right center background, clear blue sky.
He wasn’t afraid to get into the water and clean up trash along the river banks. Photo by Marie Cullis.

My son found a barge line along the shore, tangled in logs. He is trying to pull it out here.
My son found a barge line along the shore, tangled in logs. Photo courtesy of Kathleen Gibi of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful.

It was a gorgeous day on Nickajack Lake! We picked up so much trash – hundreds of plastic bottles, Styrofoam pieces, tires, broken fishing tackle and line, plastic lighters, plastic bags, food wrappers, glass bottles, and many other pieces of broken plastic items. Even a section of a plastic dock and an entire plastic truck bed liner.

One of the participating kids, Cash Daniels, also known as the Conservation Kid (@theconservationkid), was there with his family. Cash is an avid environmentalist and ocean lover. He has organized many river clean-ups and is also a published author and public speaker. I had read about him before and it was cool to meet him and his family.

The volunteers all worked hard, and the crewmembers were like superheroes!

Their leadership and positivity are what struck me most. Both the executive director of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful and the crewmembers of Living Lands & Waters were super positive, highly enthusiastic, hard-working, and obviously happy to be doing this!

Flat bottomed boat on the water with one person and heaps of trash.
Dan Breidenstein from Living Lands & Waters with trash loaded onto his boat. Photo by Marie Cullis.

Two women removing a large tire from the water, a shoreline with logs. A dog crosses a log. Two boats in the background with a man loading trash onto one of them.
Kathleen Gibi of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful with Callie Schaser from Living Lands & Waters, removing a large tire from the water. Photo by Marie Cullis.

People loading trash into a floating boat, background shows lake, land, and bright blue sky.
Loading one of the boats. The black piece in the foreground is the truck bed liner. Photo by Marie Cullis.

By the end of the afternoon, we had loaded two full flat-bottomed boats with trash and debris from just a few shorelines.

Flat bottomed boat on a trailer filled with trash, ties, and other debris.
Full boat of trash. Photo courtesy of Kathleen Gibi of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful.

Flat bottomed boat on a trailer filled with trash, ties, and other debris. Person with his arm up in the back of the boat.
Second full boat of trash. Photo courtesy of Kathleen Gibi of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful.

In the end, it was an awesome experience. I recommend that if you’re able and interested, you join a local clean-up in your area. We can all make a difference!

“That’s how the change for our river will happen: through local partners and individuals who are eager about taking ownership to protect and improve their beautiful river community.” -Kathleen Gibi, Executive Director of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful3

Group of people with a boat load of trash behind them, water in background.
Our group photo! Photo courtesy of Kathleen Gibi of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful.

Group of people with a boat load of trash behind them, water in background.
Photo of the second group, courtesy of Kathleen Gibi of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful.

Remember, the most important thing you can do right now is to stop using disposable items. Especially those made from plastic. Even when you think you are properly disposing or recycling something, so much of it inevitably makes its way into our landscapes. We have to turn off the tap when it comes to disposable items.

I hope to meet you on a future clean-up! Thank you for reading, please share and subscribe!

 

Footnotes:

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Trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina

All photos in this article were taken by me. All Rights Reserved.

The beach off of NC 12, near Black Pelican Beach, just north of Avon, NC.
The beach off of NC 12, near Black Pelican Beach, just north of Avon, NC.

This year, we visited the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I’d only ever been there once, in 2003, just before Hurricane Isabel altered parts of the barrier islands. We enjoyed the landscapes, the nature reserves, the wildlife, the quaint towns, and of course, the beaches.

Natural Beauty

The Outer Banks are a string of barrier islands that span and protect nearly the entire coast of North Carolina. As an Outer Banks Guide explained, “They are made entirely of sand, without the keel of rock that anchors most islands firmly to the earth. It is a fascinat­ingly evanescent phenomenon in geological terms, a landform so transient that changes are visible from year to year.”4 Though there is a lot of development, there are vast natural areas, preserves, dunes, and beaches. We saw inspiring sun rises on the ocean side and gorgeous sunsets on the sound side.

Sunset over the sound, taken from the Duck Town Park Boardwalk with a dock at center.
Sunset over the sound, taken from the Duck Town Park Boardwalk, Duck, NC.

Wildlife

There were more birds and crabs than I can list, as well as deer and other animals. Pelicans seemed to enjoy showing off their graceful glide just inches above the sea. Sandpipers and terns poked into the sand seeking food. A few times, I sat really still on the beach when there weren’t a lot of people around, and I became surrounded by ghost crabs! The Outer Banks have laws and protected areas for wildlife throughout the islands. They restricted humans from some places to protect bird nests:

Do Not Enter sign, restricting areas where nesting birds and their eggs are protected.
Do Not Enter signs from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service on the Outer Banks, NC.
IMG_2738

We even saw sea turtle tracks!

Sea turtle tracks on the sand.
Sea turtle tracks at Oregon Inlet, NC.

But sadly, we also found a dead sea turtle. We visited an area called Oregon Inlet and had a picnic snack on the beach. Then we walked along the beach and picked up trash.

The beach along Oregon Inlet, seaweed and shells dot the edge of the water.
The beach along Oregon Inlet, NC.

In the distance, I could see something big with orange stripes and wasn’t sure what it was until we got right up to it. Once I realized that it was a deceased sea turtle, I cried. I don’t know what caused its death, but I was sorry that it had lost its life. When I went to report the turtle, I discovered that spray paint markings like these indicate that this turtle had already been reported. Scientists document the animal’s species, sex, and age, and also extract genetic material to study and to better understand those species.

Dead sea turtle with orange spray paint lines on the sand.
Deceased sea turtle with orange spray paint markings.

The National Park Service has many sites in the Outer Banks, including several lighthouses and the Wright Brothers National Memorial, and they had one on Ocracoke Island that offered sea turtle education. My son learned a lot from the rangers and their exhibit.

My son listened to the National Park Service employees and learned about sea turtle nesting on the Outer Banks.
My son listened to the National Park Service rangers and learned about sea turtle nesting on the Outer Banks. National Park Service site on Ocracoke Island.

Sea turtle nesting exhibit at the National Park Service site on Ocracoke Island. Turtle shells, figurines, a skull, and signage on a table.
Sea turtle nesting exhibit at the National Park Service site on Ocracoke Island.

Trash

As usual for my family, we picked up litter and beachcombed. Following are three of the piles we accumulated, containing a range of items – bottles of sunscreen, pieces of toys, Styrofoam/polystyrene, pieces of nylon rope, fireworks debris, food wrappers, plastic bags and film, and many, many small pieces of plastic. I uploaded images of each individual item into the Litterati app.

Pile of collected trash.

Pile of collected trash.

Pile of collected trash.

As you can see, we found quite a variety of items, some recognizable and some not! Some of these items likely washed up on the beach from other places or fell off of boats, but others were obviously left behind. It’s so important to remember to leave the beach cleaner than you found it! Plastic pollution exponentially increases annually and is harming everything in the food chain, including humans.

Below are a few of my favorite finds – a broken green-haired plastic mermaid, a fishermen’s glove, and two missile-shaped diving weights that we ended up using and keeping!

Toy missile diving weights, orange and green.
Fishermen's glove, yellow and black.
Plastic mermaid doll, green hair and tail.

I also found these goggles, which at first I thought someone had dropped. But upon closer examination, I noticed that these had been in the ocean long enough to grow barnacles:

Barnacled and very dirty snorkle goggles, yellow frame with clear and frosted plastic parts.
Barnacled and very dirty snorkle goggles, yellow frame with clear and frosted plastic parts.
Barnacled and very dirty snorkle goggles, yellow frame with clear and frosted plastic parts.

Jennette’s Pier

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Located in Nags Head, NC, and used for sightseeing and fishing, this pier is unique. It was originally built in 1939 by the Jennette family, hence the name. The North Carolina Aquarium Society bought it in 2003 with the intention of building an educational outpost for the Aquarium, but Hurricane Isabel severely damaged the pier later that same year. The Aquarium rebuilt the 1000-foot-long, concrete pier with educational panels throughout and it reopened in 2011.5 It is LEED certified and has 3 wind turbines:

""Harnessing

Wind turbine, looking from the bottom, almost straight up. Sky in background.
Wind turbine at Jennette’s Pier.

They had exhibit panels on birds and marine mammals and shorebirds, such as this one:

"Sea Turtle Rescue" sign explaining how sea turtles are rescued.
“Sea Turtle Rescue” sign at Jennette’s Pier.

They had others on many topics, including surfing, ocean processes, fishing, and trash. In fact, they had sponsored recycling stations for items like cigarette butts and fishing line:

PVC tube recycling station for fishing line.
Recycling station for fishing line.

PVC tube recycling station for cigarette butts.
Recycling station for cigarette butts, to be recycled by TerraCycle.

The Pier House features a small, free series of North Carolina Aquariums interactive exhibits. I highly recommend visiting this pier if you’re ever on the Outer Banks!

My son standing in front of one of the North Carolina Aquarium exhibit tanks, with fish at top.
My son standing in front of one of the North Carolina Aquarium exhibit tanks.

Other Cool Finds

Outer Banks Brewing Station

We ate at this brewery and restaurant, which was once featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. While we went to several good restaurants, I’m featuring this one because it uses wind energy! It was the first wind-powered brewery in the United States, and the first business to produce wind power on the Outer Banks. They use 100% of the turbine’s energy to supplement their electricity. Over the course of its operating life (at least 30 years), this 10 kW Bergey GridTek system will offset approximately 1.2 tons of air pollutants and 250 tons of greenhouse gases.6 Oh, and we enjoyed the food and brew!

My husband inside of the Outer Banks Brewing Station, with a flight of beer in front of him on a table.
My husband at the Outer Banks Brewing Station, preparing for his flight (of beer)!

Wind turbine against blue sky, at the Outer Banks Brewing Station.
Wind turbine at the Outer Banks Brewing Station.

The Surfin’ Spoon

This frozen yogurt shop in Nags Head was my son’s absolute favorite, and they also offered dairy-free ice cream treats that were delicious! This shop, owned by a former professional surfer, collects and donates money to Surfers for Autism, a non-profit that provides free surf sessions to children and adults with autism and other related developmental delays and disabilities.7

My son peeking through the Surfin' Spoon's sign.
My son peeking through the Surfin’ Spoon’s sign.

Dog friendly

Almost everywhere on the Outer Banks is super dog friendly! I found this pleasantly surprising and hope to bring our dog there someday.

Dog prints in the sand.

Overall, A Lovely Place to Travel

We saved up for this trip and felt privileged to be able to travel the Outer Banks, taking in many sights from Corolla all the way down to Emerald Isle, North Carolina. We saw several lighthouses, National Park Service sites, and other places that I didn’t have time to mention above. I highly recommend the Outer Banks for its beauty, dedication to conservation, and relaxed atmosphere. Thanks for reading, please share and subscribe!

My son playing on the beach in the early evening in Duck, NC.
My son playing on the beach in the early evening in Duck, NC.

 

Footnotes:
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Fireworks on the beach

Fireworks on a beach in Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Fireworks on a beach in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Photo by A n v e s h on Unsplash

I love fireworks. My son loves fireworks. So much so that we drag my (grumbling) husband to watch them every July 4th. However, I do like to leave the annual tradition of blowing up sparkly gunpowder to the professionals. I have never taken much to buying and setting off my own fireworks, especially with a young child around. Since I don’t purchase consumer fireworks, I honestly have never given much thought to the waste they create. But then my best friend, who lives on the coast of North Carolina, sent me this photo the day after July 4th last year:

Fireworks debris collected on a North Carolina beach
Fireworks debris collected on a North Carolina beach, July 5, 2020. Photo by Taylor Notion

She collected that much plastic and cardboard firework waste on a walk where she lives, all left behind by people the night before. That’s the amount she found that hadn’t already washed into the ocean during high tide. That’s from just one section of one beach, in one town. I imagine fireworks at the beach are fun and beautiful, but at what cost to the environment?

Waste

After reading multiple news articles from coastal states, particularly Florida, I discovered that the Independence Day firework waste collected is measured in tons. Tons! Even on beaches where fireworks are illegal, such as on Hilton Head Island, beach patrol collected seven trailers’ worth of fireworks debris in 2019.8

“Any regular beach walker will tell you about encountering little ribbons of plastic along the tide line in the days and weeks after the Fourth of July. All waiting for the high tide that will be their ride to join that vast swirl of ocean-borne plastics.” -Mark Lane, The Daytona Beach News-Journal9

Since these are set off in the dark, it’s difficult to find all of the scattered pieces once exploded. “Fireworks launchers are big and easy to spot and haul away, but each rocket launched and bomb exploded rains tiny shards of plastics and cardboard along with a smattering of metals like lead and copper.”10 This does not include the bottles, cans, cigarette butts, snack bags/containers, and other single-use disposable items that July 4th partiers leave behind.

Plastics

The plastic bits break down into smaller pieces called microplastics, which are then ingested by fish and marine animals. The toxins from those plastics make their way through the food chain, all the way into our bodies.

Saturn Missile Battery fireworks
This 25 shot Saturn Missile costs under $2.00 but will leave microplastics for hundreds of years.

Here is just one example. The Saturn Missile Battery (SMB), which I’ve seen debris from in a lot of Fifth of July clean-up images, is a common type of aerial firework. It consists of a cardboard base packed with between 25 to 1,000 shots. These shots are small plastic tubes filled with explosive powder. “When an SMB is detonated, each of those tubes shoots into the air with a shrill whistle, shatters apart and falls back to earth, creating a shower of litter that’s hard for even the best-intentioned reveler to clean up. Unlike colorful caps and wings, the dull gray or green SMB litter blends into sand and soil.”11 These bits of plastics and microplastics will last for hundreds of years.

Fifth of July Clean-ups

For all celebrations at the beach, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recommends cleaning up after ourselves, participating in coastal clean-ups, and educating others. “By celebrating the Fourth of July and enjoying fireworks responsibly, we can honor our country through protecting our beloved coastal environments, and the marine animals who rely on these habitats.”12 There are “Fifth of July” clean-ups nationwide, volunteers who clean-up after the partiers the night before. It’s always a good thing to participate in a trash clean-up. But what if we could end this tradition altogether and avoid a 4th of July pollution hangover?

Fireworks on a road
Photo by Alexander Kagan on Unsplash

Wildlife Disturbance

Left on the beaches, fireworks debris harms marine life. They block the paths of sea turtles and crabs. Not to mention birds and marine animals ingest these small pieces of debris. Additionally, there are dangers to all wildlife from injury and entanglement from the plastic garbage. Unfortunately, July 4th is during prime sea turtle nesting season.

The noise from fireworks disturbs animals everywhere, from eagles and other birds to our domesticated love ones. The loud explosions cause panic and despair in many animals.13 Just think of how your dog or your neighbor’s dog reacts every 4th of July.

“Environmentalists from Clearwater Marine Aquarium and Audubon Bird Stewards reported that the noise, debris, and lights from fireworks were negatively impacting both sea turtles and beach nesting birds. Fireworks cause aborted nesting attempts, ingestion of plastic residue, and disturbed and disoriented hatchlings, all of which significantly reduces the number of successful births.”14

Seal with a plastic or rubber ring growing into the skin around its neck.
Any litter you leave on the beach can potentially harm another species. Image by Noutch from Pixabay

Other Problems from Fireworks

Consumer fireworks cause thousands of injuries annually in the United States. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in 2019 there were approximately 10,000 injuries from fireworks treated in emergency departments, with about 73% of those during just a one-month interval surrounding July 4th.15

In addition, fireworks, both consumer and professional types, are potentially toxic to the air and water, hence to us, wildlife, and the water we drink.16&17&18

Fireworks from gender reveal parties have caused massive wildfires.19&20

Did you know that Americans spend close to $1 billion annually on consumer fireworks? This number astonished me for many reasons. Do you know how many problems we could solve for ourselves, wildlife, and the planet with $1 billion? Make a list, pick one, and I bet it’s money better spent than just blowing it up.

Fireworks debris piled up on sand.
Photo by Karen Montgomery on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Environmentally Friendly Fireworks

There have been some developments with making more environmentally friendly fireworks, but these changes have not been significant enough to make large-scale differences. These include fireworks released with compressed air as an alternate propellant and changing the chemical make-up to reduce pollutants, but the studies on the latter are still new and the impact is not clear. In consumer fireworks, some companies are trying to switch to recycled paper and cardboard components over plastics, but testing new products takes time and money.

Fireworks debris on the coast of New Zealand.
Photo by Murray Adamson on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 2.0)

New Traditions

July 4th is no celebration for the environment and wildlife. We can do better. Especially with something that is so non-essential to our lives.

I argue that we don’t need to set off consumer fireworks or sparklers on the beach or anywhere else in nature, at all. In fact, I began this article as a person who loved to drag her family to professional fireworks every summer, but after researching the problems even they create, I’m starting to think differently. Are there new traditions we can create? What about laser light shows?

If you do set off fireworks on the beach or in a natural area, please take safety precautions and clean up the debris. It really matters! We can all make a difference and encourage others to do the right thing. Thank you for reading, please share and subscribe.

 

Additional Resources:

Article, “Let Freedom Ring and Fireworks Fly, but Keep Debris off the Beaches and Out of the Sky!” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program, July 1, 2019.

Article, “Fireworks: Can they ever be eco-friendly?” Deutsche Welle, accessed June 19, 2021.

Article, “Are Fireworks Bad for the Environment?” by Russell McLendon, Treehugger.com, updated February 23, 2021.

Footnotes:

 

Posted on

Have you heard about Litterati?

Last updated on February 12, 2023.

Photo of a discarded blue plastic laundry detergent bottle (it actually looks like a Downy bottle) on the ground, by nicholasrobb1989 on Pixabay.
Photo of a discarded plastic laundry detergent bottle on the ground, by nicholasrobb1989 on Pixabay.

Have you ever been out walking, hiking, biking, or even kayaking and noticed that there was trash here and there, everywhere? Noticed trash lining the streets as you drove to work or school? Or the debris that just seems to have washed up while walking on the beach or riverbank?

What do you do? Do you pick it up?

If so, there’s an app for that. It’s called Litterati.

Litterati app logo, blue with L surrounded by a diamond shaped line.
Litterati app.

This app tracks litter that people all over the world pick up, and it compiles the data by location in order to pinpoint the source of the litter. With this app you take a photo of each piece of litter with your smartphone, then pick it up and discard it. You can get really artistic with your photos, too. Litterati features the most interesting and creative photos on Instagram.

The Data

Photos are automatically geotagged, meaning information about the exact location and time of pick-up is recorded. Additionally, users hashtag each image with information such as the brand, object name, and type of material.

Photo of a discarded Coca-Cola can on the ground, by Stanislav Kondratiev on Unsplash.
Photo of a discarded Coca-Cola can on the ground, by Stanislav Kondratiev on Unsplash.

That data is loaded into an ArcGIS map to help track and create data to help diagnose the root cause of litter in any given area.10 As Litterati’s website explains:

“Litterati then compiles that cleanup data into a robust database of litter maps around the world. Using your tagged cleanup photos, the Litterati team can ask questions such as, ‘How does the weather affect the types of litter thrown?’ and ‘Are there more cigarette butts littered near bus stops?’.”21 

Jeff Kirschner, the founder of Litterati, explained in a TED Talk why he created the app:

Join Us!

I joined this effort in March 2017, and I love it! I’ve used it in my neighborhood, while hiking, on my son’s school grounds, at the dog park, and at the beach. We pick up trash whenever we feel we can safely collect it and discard it. It is really satisfying to know we are making a difference and teaching my son by example.

Consistent Growth

You can join or create clubs and daily they list the top 5 people with the most activity. I made that list twice and it made my day!

In May 2018, the United Nations announced that they are partnering with Litterati to fight world pollution.22 

While Litterati is using its data and mapping for great changes, Jeff Kirschner is still looking to inspire people. “How do we deliver a wonderful experience for each community member so that they’re inspired to pick up just one more piece, and then one more?”23 And then spread the word, build community, and inspire others. Wouldn’t it be cool if picking up trash and keeping our Earth clean became the new normal?

Thank you for reading, and let’s be the change!

A few of my own Litterati photos:

Footnotes: