Sea Streak Beach Swept Clean by Clean Ocean Action

Clean Ocean Action held their annual fall Beach Sweep this past Saturday at Sea Streak Beach, Atlantic Highlands. Clean Ocean Action is a non-profit organization founded by Cindy Zipf in 1984, which has helped bring awareness about the abundance of garbage on our beaches. Since then, beach sweeps have taken place across the Jersey Shore every fall and spring to ensure our beaches will be clean for the summer. The unique process of this organization is that Clean Ocean Action tracks the numbers, so a tally sheet is given out with a checklist of frequent trash items found on our beaches. The results from the beach sweeps are exponentially sobering. Since 1985 there have been over 6.2 million pieces of garbage picked up from our beaches. One has to wonder what our beaches would still look like had the COA not been founded.

Although a local scout troop held a beach sweep of their own at Sea Streak Beach a week prior to Clean Ocean Action’s Beach Sweep, we still managed to gather a plethora of garbage and recycling. This event also brought out a lot of volunteers including teenagers from local high schools, families looking to do good in their community, and even Mayor Rhonda C. Le Grice of Atlantic Highlands came to join the beach cleanup.

Some of the most interesting pieces of litter found were a storm drain and five dollars. The item found that most powerfully impacted me was a baby clam stuck inside a plastic tube. I was sick to my stomach seeing the clam helpless in there, knowing it was us that caused it.

The impact this organization has made on our beaches and our community is uncanny and I know this organization won’t stop until the beaches are clean, one peace of garbage at a time.