Professor Farady’s Marine Pollution class got together during class time on Thursday, September 24th to participate in the International Coastal Cleanup. By splitting up into groups they were able to spend the morning picking up garbage on Freddy Beach and all the way down Hills Beach Road. The process involved a very detailed tally of each individual piece of trash they pick up, what it was, what it was made of, and in some cases even the size.

By using a sheet provided by the Ocean Conservancy volunteers are able to keep track of the trash collected during the cleanup. In 2012 the International Coastal Cleanup picked up 10 million pounds of debris on beaches. The leading items found during the cleanup in 2012 were cigarettes, food wrappers and containers, plastic bottles, and plastic bags. Due to this being a smoke free campus, the students doing the cleanup did not find an overwhelming amount of cigarette butts on our campus beach, but they did find some of the other popular items listed above. The students also picked up some interesting pieces of trash such as shoes, socks, balloons, dryer sheets, and two students even pulled giant pieces of metal out of the Saco River! Morgen Schlumpf, a junior at UNE and a student in Dr. Farady’s Marine Pollution Class was one of the two to find the metal in the water, “It shocked me when I had found these large chunks of metal in the water. They were so rusted, they had to have been there a long time.”

After studying Marine Debris in class the students enjoyed doing something to help the cause they were learning so much about. Schlumpf enjoyed the experience, and like many of the other volunteers during the event, she was inspired to continue to be more mindful about her own trash, “It felt good to be able to cleanup, even just a few pieces, along the beach. I think if we all picked up just one piece of marine debris, it would make such a difference.”