The beaches on Tybee Island are a bit cleaner thanks to Georgia Southern students from the Statesboro and Armstrong Campuses.
Green Ambassadors and Go Green Armstrong, student-led sustainability organizations on the Statesboro and Armstrong Campuses, respectively, teamed up with Tybee Clean Beach Volunteers on March 31 to remove trash from the beaches and roadways.
“Volunteers from Go Green Armstrong go to the Tybee Clean Beach cleanups every Sunday,” said Rachel Hammond, president of Go Green Armstrong. “This beach day was the first beach event we ourselves have put on this semester, though, and since it went so well, we’d love to have more.”
Every weekend from 9 a.m. to noon, Tybee Clean Beach Volunteers provide buckets and pick-up sticks to anyone interested in removing litter and keeping Tybee Island clean and safe. More than a dozen students spent two hours collecting litter, which was then sorted into various recyclable and trash categories.
“We picked up cans, bottle caps, styrofoam containers, straws, napkins — you name it, we found it,” said Green Ambassadors Vice President Sidney Drawdy. “100 percent of beach litter is preventable, especially on Tybee where there are several trash cans and recycle cans all along the beach.”
The two organizations hope to partner more for beach cleanups in the future. The Green Ambassadors will participate in another cleanup day on May 19, and hope to partner with Go Green Armstrong that day.
“With both campuses taking larger steps toward sustainability, we will hopefully get the opportunity to collaborate in more events together,” said Drawdy.
“Go Green Armstrong is thrilled to be working with the Green Ambassadors,” added Hammond. “We’ve been wanting to get this partnership in motion for a while, and this cleanup was a great step.
In addition, the two organizations will work together in celebration of Earth Day. Go Green Armstrong and the Statesboro Campus’ Center for Sustainability will host an Earth Day Film screening of “Chasing Coral” at 6 p.m. April 17 in the Ogeechee Theater on the Armstrong Campus. Then, on April 21, Go Green Armstrong and Green Ambassadors will work together at the Savannah Earth Day Festival. Green Ambassadors at Georgia Southern is advised through the Georgia Southern Center for Sustainability.
Georgia Southern Green Ambassadors can be found on Twitter @GreenAmbGSU and Instagram @GreenAmbassadorsGSU for updates, green advice and event photos.
