Not Our Trash But These Are Our Beaches

A group of thirteen volunteers met today at Keybox beach access in Delaware Seashore State Park.
We meet weekly, every Sunday, by 9 AM and then get to work, walking the beach with buckets to collect trash. We clean a different beach each week in the Delaware State Parks. In the summer we meet on Tuesdays.
The amount of people changes each week but we average about eighteen people each week over a year. Each clean up on average takes around three hours. DSF supplies five gallon buckets for everyone and gloves. DS Custom Tackle supplies water. Iron Hill Brewery Rehoboth feeds the crew after the clean up. ” Iron Hill Brewery Rehoboth’s Senior General Manager Chris Berghaus … “We want to say thank you to these folks for for selflessly cleaning the beaches we all love and use. We just want to help any way we can. ”

I start with the same talk every week … “For anyone new today, don’t pick up any natural debris, that includes animal parts, feathers, and anything natural like reeds and such. We only pick up trash. If you find a bottle of liquid do not open it, that is not water, but it used to be. Now I have to explain what a “trucker Bomb” is to everyone’s to laughter.
These days we have to add this tidbit “If you find anything that looks like drugs, or needles let us know we will take care of that and call the rangers or police if necessary.” Sad that we have to include that in the welcome to the beach clean up speech.

We usually pull one to two fifty gallon bags full of trash off a beach every week. Honestly we could do this everyday and find as much trash. This trash comes from the ocean and land, not tourists. Despite what people think it washes up onto the beach or blows in from the land. If you notice in the pictures we are the only people out there.

We don’t do this for glory, or a pat on the back, we do it to help the beaches and keep them clean. Most of the beach clean up volunteers aren’t even surf fishermen, they just care about the beaches.
It may be a drop in the bucket compared to the worldwide problem, but at least we are trying to get trash off the beaches. We also hope it creates awareness and motivates others to follow suit on their own. The next time you are out and about and see trash. Pick it up. This not our trash, but they are our beaches. Take that one step further. That isn’t your trash, but it is your planet, help keep it clean.

Next week we will meet at the southside inlet parking lot and do the soutside beach to 3Rs. You can find the clean ups on the Delaware Surf Fishing Facebook event pages as well.