A record number of First Coast residents participated in this month’s Florida Coastal Cleanup event.
Dan Durbec with the City of Jacksonville’s Neighborhoods Department said Monday that 1,075 volunteers scoured area beaches and waterways on September 21, collecting stuff people had thrown away or just simply left behind.
“There were over 8,000 pounds of rubbish and trash — and this includes things like beds, mattresses, car parts, pallets, construction equipment,” Durbec said.
Plenty of plastic bottles and straws were also removed along with more than 20,000 cigarette butts.
Durbec said litter’s not just ugly, it harms the environment and kills marine life.
Stopping the behavior, he said, needs to start with children, and the younger the better. “Talk about the effects, the impact of litter. That candy wrapper they’re throwing down, it has a consequence. It can go into the waterways, it can damage animals. So the key is parents teaching their kids this is not a good thing to do.”
Jacksonville’s coastal cleanup was part of a global Ocean Conservancy initiative to protect the world’s waterways.
Contact reporter Cyd Hoskinson at choskinson@wjct.org, 904-358-6351 and on Twitter at @cydwjctnews.
