Volunteers at Rockaway Beach clean up mess left behind from July 4th celebrations
NEW YORK - Thousands packed New York's beaches this week to celebrate the Fourth of July. And after taking in the sights of fireworks above, underfoot, they left their marks behind.
Conservation groups are calling July 5 "the dirtiest beach day of the year" in the wake of Independence Day, with litter from parties and barbecues strewn across the sand.
It happens year after year. That's why the nonprofit Surfrider and the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy are partnering to pick it up at Rockaway Beach.
Surfrider says its volunteers have collected more than 1 million pounds of trash at beach cleanups in the past 10 years alone.
The worst offender: plastic, which kills marine species through ingestion, entanglement, and suffocation.
"We have a number of bird species including piping plovers and American oystercatchers," said Kiera Maloney, Vice Chair of Surfrider New York City Chapter. "So when there's trash amongst the dune grass, that impacts its ability to grow, its ability to hold that root network and keep our dunes intact."
At the Rockaway Beach cleanup on Wednesday, several large trash bags got filled in the first hour alone.
Surfrider says the problem of pollution is systemic and is pushing for policy change around single-use plastics.
Events like beach cleanups give hope.
"It's really great to see how many people care about our natural resources in New York City and come out to show it by volunteering," said Emma McCauley, Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy Education Coordinator.
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