The beach at Point Gratiot in Dunkirk has been spruced up, ridded of several thousand pieces of debris for the coming summer season, thanks to a recent cleanup mounted by Fredonia students, faculty and community members.
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A platoon of 70 volunteers – nearly half of them Cub Scouts and their parents – scoured nearly 3/4ths of a mile of beach for three hours on April 22. Logging some 178 total volunteer hours, they scooped up an impressive 245.8 pounds of discarded plastic, food wrappers, pieces of foam, cigar tips and cigarette butts.
“The vast majority of what we pick up is plastic, which is really light,” explained Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences Chair Sherri (Sam) Mason. Consistent with her ongoing research into plastics pollution in the Great Lakes, Dr. Mason catalogued plastic debris by size: 1,734 pieces less than 2.5 cm, and 1,547 pieces over 2.5 cm.
“You could spend literally an hour on a square meter of beach, because the plastic pieces are so small and embedded in the sand,” Mason explained.
Also gathered were 763 bottle caps, 522 food wrappers, 267 cigar tips, 223 cigarette butts and 208 plastic beverage bottles. And for the first time in the cleanup campaign’s 10-year history, cigar tips outnumbered cigarette butts. Three automobile tires and several pieces of black rubber the size of door mats, commonly used as padding material on docks to protect boats, were also picked up. Collected items were shipped to a landfill.
The spring cleanup, organized by Fredonia faculty with assistance from the campus’ Office of Volunteer and Community Services, is affiliated with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, the largest and oldest citizens’ environmental organization dedicated to the protection of the Great Lakes through multiple initiatives, including spring beach cleanup efforts. Fredonia also coordinates a fall beach cleanup affiliated with the International Coastal Cleanup.
