On Saturday, October 20th, I had the pleasure of joining some of the Water Watch crew for a Beach Sweep at the Atlantic City Beach. After waking up early to perform this bit of service (only reason I would get up early), we departed to Atlantic City. Once we got to the Trump Plaza we made our way behind that to the boardwalk and the area where everyone was meeting. Numerous other groups of people came to help as well. We sat patiently as we endured another two or three speeches stating the purpose of the group known as COA or Clean Ocean Action. Clean Ocean Action is a group that is not on Stockton’s campus.  The speeches basically thanked us, the volunteers, for coming. We were then handed a white garbage bag for plastic and recyclables, a black garbage bag for trash and a data sheet to fill out. The data sheet was supposed to be used as a tally sheet for what we found with almost all things you would find at a beach garbage wise. So off we went exploring the great unknown at the beach.

What I was met with was a disaster to behold. I am used to my beaches being for the most part clean. Garbage lay everywhere but it blended in the sand just enough that you could ignore it in your conscious if you had to. We slowly chipped our way across a small section of the beach and under the pier. This path consisted of a hellish mess of cigarette butts, pieces of plastic, Styrofoam, a dead seagull, and other random objects. I have never been at a beach that not only was this unclean, but somehow was hidden enough to not notice without closer examination.  We had almost the entire bag full and we had only just gotten to the pier. We also had to just write “over 100” in the cigarette butts and Styrofoam categories as there was just too many to keep track of.  This was the first realization of how bad the situation on certain beaches can be.

We wandered under the pier, a sight that I was not accustomed to. Moving from the bright sunlight to a relatively dark and damp place was both interesting and odd. It was here we made our major finds of the day; a couple pair of women’s underwear, three syringes, five used condoms, and a few pregnancy tests. While I was not relatively surprised by this find, I was still stumped as to why someone would feel the need to do such a thing on a beach and under a pier. Atlantic City is known for its hotels, why not use them? These thoughts were constantly running through my head as we worked our way through the pier. The really cool part of being under the pier is that when the waves crash into and under the pier, they look much larger than normal and they seem to be racing to you. I wish I had taken pictures of these waves as well as the marks they had made on the sand that hadn’t been disturbed by the incoming tide. Seeing that and collecting a few neat rocks and sea glass made the entire beach sweep an adventure.

After filling up our first bag and going to get another, we went out from under the pier and continued along the beach under it was time to go. Overall, we had filled up four bags full of the litter people decide is a good idea to either throw into the ocean or leave on the beach. While I understood that people threw garbage on the beach, I did not realize the magnitude nor how some items were so much more prominent then others. Seriously, people need to throw out their cigarettes butts where they are supposed to. Perhaps the businesses that are close to the ocean should make more of an effort to keep their beaches clean. Perhaps people shouldn’t do drugs or inject themselves on the beach. Perhaps people should pay more to their junk as well. These are all great possibilities to think about when enjoying a hopefully clean beach. The best thing to do is to support groups on Stockton such as Water Watch and volunteer to help them and their causes such as the Beach Sweep.