Beach Clean-up Time Again
Posted 05/05/25
The old man called the police, complaining about crimes taking place in the open on a street corner near his home: drug-dealing, mugging, prostitution... He was informed that it was a hopeless task, once the offenders were taken off the street, all of the crime simply began again the next day. The old man replied, “Well, my shoes get dirty every day but that doesn’t mean I stop shining them.” I told this anecdotal story years ago to the new Quoddy Head State Park Manager as he was stuffing beach trash—bits of buoys, rope, bleach bottles, soda cans et al—into one of many large garbage bags. He had been mildly ridiculed as the “new guy” with unrealistic goals working like a child trying to empty the ocean with a small plastic pail. We both agreed that it was an unending job yet a job that needed to be done. I have been picking trash off of Carrying Place Cove for over a decade, bit by bit throughout the years, and haven’t made a dent in it. Still we work.
It might be good to remember that most of this stuff is plastic—ropes, nets, buoys, potato chip bags, water bottles, balloons… and plastic does not “break down,” rather it breaks up into smaller and smaller bits, contributing to the rising tide of microplastics and all of the various toxic substances that are contained within them. These particles last in the ocean for a very long time and are the cause of great concern for all marine wildlife and any person or creature that consumes seafood.
One of the most egregious and relatively new sources of vast amounts of essentially irretrievable plastics is the development and vastly increased usage of Styrofoam pellet-filled mooring buoys. These large buoys appeared just about the same time that Styrofoam containers and packaging were being banned and taken off the market (co-inkydink—methinks not). About thirty years ago large plastic pellet-filled buoys were being used to replace the standard air-filled polyethylene buoys which had been in use for generations. These large (4’X5’) moorings have since been installed in many harbors and industrial fish farming operations throughout the United States and far beyond. They were marketed as nearly indestructible. It was about the same time that roto-molded kayaks had come on the market and Old Town kayaks were being tossed off a three-story roof and run over by a truck to demonstrate how tough they were. And they were. Until about twenty years passed, when the buoys, like all plastics, began to weaken from sun damage, become brittle, and break free of their mooring lines to shatter on ledges and rocky shores all along the Bold Coast of Maine. I have retrieved at least a half-dozen of these buoys which leave huge swathes of tiny pellets across an otherwise pristine Down East beach and have seen dozens which I could not retrieve. Each pellet is just the size and shape of fish roe and greedily gobbled up by unwary fish and birds that are attracted by shape, size, and color, as any angler well knows.
Because plastic is so difficult to safely destroy, we have been counseled to use less and to be more aware of the damage that plastic does to our environment and the health consequences that follow. Yet the Styrofoam pellet business is booming while an estimated 230,000 tons of plastic “nurdles” (many trillions) are released into the sea every year to absorb even more pollutants and to enter the food chain of all marine dwellers and consumers of seafood products, from minnows and teeter-tails to basking sharks, whales, and finally to your dinner table.
Another interesting and totally inexplicable thing about this massive introduction of an entirely new avenue of toxic waste is that these Styrofoam pellets are completely unregulated and ignored vehemently by the EPA and any agency that one might think has some interest in such issues. I once reported a broken buoy to the DEP and was told that they could not do anything about it because it was considered “trash” and therefore not within the scope of their mandate. I have reported this unseemly situation to Senator Angus King only to be informed that it was not a “federal issue”?! Ocean health and pollution are not “federal issues?” I then contacted the Maine Department of Marine Resources and was told much the same and that I should contact the Harbor Master about such things. He said it was the “Manufacturer’s problem”—and they (see Dow Chemical, Dupont...) are not talking. Most of these buoys, unlike much other marine equipment, are unmarked and no one ever claims them. And the mess-making continues and we continue to clean the beaches and dust our shoes at the end of the day.
Enough of the dooms-daying. Many of us are happy consumers of sea-food; lobster, shrimp, scallops et al. As such we bear a certain amount of responsibility for the inevitable loss of fishing gear at sea which is functionally impossible to recover from a working fishing boat. Currently there is no standard method for cleaning our beaches, ledges, and rocky coastlines other than to ask for volunteers to help in the process. MITA ( Maine Island Trail Association) has a long and growing history in cleaning up the islands of the Maine Island Trail. I am the designated local steward for Rodgers Island, and our clean-up is generally later in the summer, being located at the far eastern end of the watery trail. But there are clean-ups which start in early spring, run through-out the season and end in late September. Find one near yourself and join in the fun. We at Turtle Dance Co-op in Lubec take much of our treasured flotsam and make Sea-Junk puppets. Just last week we did a puppet show on Earth Day at the Lubec Library then at the First Congregational Church in East Machias. The level of fun that was engendered by these items lost at sea was absolutely remarkable and the children at the church were hanging agog over their pews to get a good look at the Sea Junk characters.
Work; Have fun; Love your world.
by: Charles Kniffen
Contact mita.org/cleanups for island clean-up info
Lubec spring street cleanup: May 17-31