State coastline cleanup part of worldwide effort

WASHINGTON – All things flow to the sea, including the weird stuff.

Then again, sometimes they have to be carried, including home appliances, washing machines, car parts and 55-gallon metal drums.

That’s the kind of trash that gets cleared away annually from the Maine shoreline, along with plastic wrap, cigarette butts, deflated helium balloons and an occasional poem in a bottle, according to Theresa Torrent-Ellis of the Maine Coastal Program at the State Planning Office in Augusta.

Last year she helped organize more than 2,300 Maine volunteers from Calais to Kittery to help pick up more than 1.9 tons of litter and debris from the state’s shoreline in what has become an annual international effort coordinated by The Ocean Conservancy, a Washington-based environmental group, to clean up coastlines, rivers and lakes around the world.

This year’s one-day effort is scheduled for Sept. 15.

“With over half of America’s population living within 50 miles of the coast, the problems caused by marine debris are right in their back yard,” said Roger Rufe, president of The Ocean Conservancy.

“The number of volunteers grows as people realize the problem of marine debris.”

Everyone pitches in, Torrent-Ellis said: Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, students, seniors, the U.S. Coast Guard and members of the Rotary Club.

And it’s paying off.

“It’s cleaner each year, finding less debris on the mainland beaches, but the islands are being impacted more, it seems,” she said.

Nearly 1 million volunteers around the globe took part in helping haul away more than 13.5 million pounds of garbage last year at the water’s edge.

The event first was held in 1986 when 2,800 volunteers collected 124 tons of trash from 122 miles of Texas shoreline. Two years later, 47,500 volunteers pitched in nationwide. The next year, Canada and Mexico joined in and since then the cleanup has mushroomed into an international event with more than 73 nations taking part.

The types of trash volunteers pick up gets recorded on detailed cards itemizing 80 different categories for future data crunching.

Analysts then identify patterns of litter and other dumping to hash out possible solutions that might minimize the problem.

Maine seems to have its own pattern, according to Torrent-Ellis.

“There’s lots of plastic bottles in southern Maine and northern Maine has more fishing gear,” she said.

Seven of the top dozen most common items found last year in the United States were made of plastic, the biggest and longest-lasting of litter. Cigarette butts, plastic bags, fishing line and packaging all degrade very slowly and cause havoc with marine life and birds, according to The Ocean Conservancy.

Animals can slowly choke to death after eating small, colorful pieces of plastic or becoming entangled in pieces of fishing line and nets, strapping bands, rope and plastic six-pack rings. Sea turtles, which migrate north through the Gulf of Maine, are thought to mistake plastic bags for their favorite delicacy – jellyfish.

Once ingested, the items can cause internal injury, intestinal blockage and starvation.

How does it get there? More than 60 percent originates from landlubber activity. Trash is frequently – intentionally and illegally – dumped. Hence the washing machines, old cars, batteries and home appliances that some volunteers labor to pull away from shorelines.

Sometimes the garbage travels through storm drains and sewers. Puffy plastic cigarette filters tossed into city streets easily make the long journey to the sea after a heavy rain. It takes seven years for a butt to biodegrade and volunteers found 1 million last year in the United States.

Skin divers also take part in the cleanup, according to Torrent-Ellis, and they are especially welcome in Bar Harbor because of the increased traffic from the cruise ship industry.

“There’s been a huge shift in how that region has been used and the number of ships has increased something like tenfold in recent years,” she said. “Divers have found a boat toilet, lots of bottles, watches, signposts, tires, a large rug – the list goes on.”

For more information, visit the Web site for The Ocean Conservancy, formerly The Center for Marine Conservation, at: www.cmc-ocean.org.