Ever toss a can or bottle off a boat? Drop a cigarette stub in the sand? Leave a food wrapper or plastic bag to blow away?

Alabama beaches are beautiful, but they are not immune to the effects of debris and litter. Think your little bit of trash doesn’t matter? On International Coastal Cleanup day in 2016, volunteers collected:

  • 4 million pounds of trash on shorelines
  • 41,000 pounds of underwater trash

Top items collected were by far cigarette butts at 1.8 million, followed by 1.5 million plastic beverage bottles; 822,227 plastic bottle caps; 762,353 food wrappers; 520,900 plastic grocery bags; 419,380 plastic lids; 409,087 straws; 390,468 glass beverage bottles and 365,584 take-away containers.

Keep in mind: These are the items volunteers picked up in a single day. The efforts did not cover every shoreline or every body of water, so think about how much more litter is out there.

Habitat structures are altered by debris build-up as oxygen levels are depleted. Unfortunately, plastic becomes part of the food chain for marine life. Seabirds that ingested this toxic material had PCB concentrations in fat tissues corresponding to the amounts of plastic found in their stomachs.

Plastic marine debris harms at least 267 species globally, including 86 percent of sea turtles, 44 percent of seabirds and 43 percent of marine mammals, according to the Environmental Plastic Agency.

On our public beaches, you’ll find bins for both trash and recyclable items. Please use them to keep litter off of our beaches and out of our waterways.