What We Find

Beach sweeps by the numbers…

In 2020, despite COVID-19, we safely held 47 clean ups involving 1,469 volunteers; PLUS, hundreds more individuals and families borrowed our equipment and cleaned up on their own. Thank you for those individual efforts!

In 2019, we held 74 beach cleans involving over 3,200 volunteers
In 2018, we held 71 beach cleanings involving 2,163 volunteers
In 2017, we held 65 clean ups involving 1,987 volunteers
In 2016, we held 47 clean ups involving 1,146 volunteers

Types of trash we find…

Total frequency distribution of beach trash by item for all beach sweeps where litter was counted and sorted, as of August 2017:

1. Butts & smoking related materials (packaging, lighters) – nearly 70% of all beach trash

2. Straws & straw wrappers & stirrers

3. Plastic bottle caps

4. Snack wrappers & food packaging

5. Styrofoam pieces

6. Paper & cardboard

7. Plastic fragments, all sizes

8. Aluminum cans

9. Plastic bags & baggies

10. Plastic bottles

11. Plastic beach toys

Notes

– We’ve counted over 400,000 butts from Tybee’s beach in 3 years and removed tens of thousands more that were not counted; 245,500 have been recycled with Terracycle

– The Top Ten trash items account for over 93% of all beach trash removed

What We Find

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