What We Found on Our Shoreline

It was a beautiful clear sunny day on Saturday when members of the Gloucester community gathered to clean our harbor. Teams were dispersed all around the city thanks to the coordination efforts of the Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, Maritime Gloucester, our two Cultural Districts downtown and on Rocky Neck, and our own Rebecca Siswick Graham. After a presentation about ocean trash by the Rozalia Project Friday night, volunteers gathered at their assigned locations Saturday morning for this one-hour effort to collect and record as much trash and recycling as possible. We had a hard-working team at the Paint Factory crawling amongst the rocks pulling out styrofoam, fishing gear and lots of plastic water bottles that had washed in. Representatives from Parley for the Oceans, The Hive, One Hour at a Time, City Council member Melissa Cox, neighbors, friends and family worked together to bag and sort the trash and deliver it for collection. It’s safe to say that all of the volunteers were stunned by the amount of trash caught in the rocks, washed in by high tide and washed out at low tide. After our previous cleanup earlier in the year we seemed to be right back where we started, and imagining the same conditions repeated on all of our coastlines was very unsettling. So what can you do? Use reusable water bottles and coffee cups, join in local cleanups in your area to collect trash and fishing lines and gear that can cause entanglements, and support groups working to educate the public like the Rozalia Project. More photos can be seen on our Facebook page.