Out of State Post: Chincoteague, VA (14-Oct-2016)

I have wanted to do a beach clean-up all summer and I finally got the opportunity. Was invited to go with some friends down to Chincoteague Island in Virginia. I know this and a couple of the posts following this one are not focused around cleaning up Eastern PA, but they are about clean-ups and wildlife encountered on them. Many Pennsylvanians spend their vacations at the shore, we should help to keep these areas that we visit clean as well as our own state. The first clean-up I went out on was on Friday night with Tyler Sacks. We were hoping to make it to the National Wildlife Refuge before the gates closed, but we missed it by about an hour. We found that the accessible areas at night were extremely limited. On my way in to the island I had noticed that there was a public boat launch in the bay so we headed out to that. Signs posted stated that the parking was only for those using the launch, we were going to clean it up, I feel that is a good enough reason to be parked there. Above is the only wildlife we spotted. It is a small shrimp and wasn't the easiest thing to photograph. 

This really was like a mixture of a roadside and river clean-up, with the smell of the bay. There were two launches in the middle of a dead end road that shot off the main road into Chincoteague on the bay. So it really was walking a road next to the water. While we were walking down to the end two trucks did pull in, both stopped, pulled lines out of the water and were on their way. We both thought they might be crabbing.

Working our way back up the dead end to the launch Tyler had a litter pick-up first. He found a syringe. It is very disappointing seeing one of these when I was spending most of my time with my shoes off. This problem really is everywhere. Watch your step whether you are on vacation rafting down a river or going to the beach. Syringes can be anywhere. 

This was everything we collected. From the launch we could see many more items caught between the launch road and the main road, but without a boat there we couldn't do anything about it. The trash items were disposed of in cans at the launch and the recyclables were packed up. The little plastic shovel got nearly immediate reuse. It was taken by Tyler's younger brother and used at the beach the next day. 

You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash

Like this project? Like it on Facebook: Taking Out the Trash in Eastern PA