Islanders clear over 300 lbs. of post-storm beach trash

Last week’s powerful storm that struck the Island, eroding a number of south-facing beaches, also washed up a lot of trash and debris. 

And Island environmentalists, during a cleanup on a breezy winter solstice Dec. 21, gathered at Squibnocket Beach and removed more than 300 pounds of lighters, fishing equipment, plastic bottles, and other debris. 

The Beach Be-Frienders, sponsored by the Vineyard Conservation Society, typically organize monthly cleanups. They organized this “emergency” cleanup following last week’s storm.

“There’s so much debris which has washed up — which will get washed back out, and affect all the ocean life — it’s important to keep at it with every opportunity,” Vineyard Conservation Society board president Jennifer Blum said. “This presented a golden opportunity on the winter solstice to get out here … and pick up whatever we can find, and boy, oh boy, there is a lot to find.” 

Laurisa Rich, who runs the Beach Be-Frienders operation, told The Times these cleanups began in May, although the idea was conceived earlier in the year. 

“It was conceived last January after a big storm very much like this,” she said, adding that the goal was to “befriend beaches” and encourage more people to participate in beach cleanups. 

While there are various benefits, Rich said the activity acts as a remedy to “eco-grief” for her. She described eco-grief as a “pervasive sadness at the decline of our ecological balance,” due to human impact. Rich said that she also feels some complicity as she drives around, uses plastics, or uses energy. But she said that if everyone chooses to do something to help the environment, even if it is small, it can make a difference, and “balance the scales.” 

“It’s something simple that I can do that helps the habitat, that helps … all the aspects of microplastic when they get into the environment,” she said. “We can interrupt that, and dispose of trash properly.” 

Various objects have been found during the cleanups since May this year, according to Rich, including coconuts, shellfish grow-out bags, and shriveled, compressed lobster buoys that almost looked like “really scrawny mushrooms.” 

One of the most interesting objects that the beach cleanup came upon was a bottled letter by a class of 14 high school students from Ocracoke Island in North Carolina, which was tossed into the water during their graduation. The letter shared how the students had lost their school building during a storm their freshman year, right before the COVID pandemic hit. The students spent high school in temporary facilities, and they’ve since gone to college. 

“Quite a big number of them, apparently, are going into environmental fields to be part of the solution,” Rich said. 

Not everyone who joined in the cleanup on Thursday originally planned on helping. A Times reporter accompanied a couple of beach cleaners, Beaven Burkett and Marsha Feinberg, with their dog Pearl leading the way. As they filled up their reused birdseed bags with trash, Burkett told The Times the two Vineyarders had come across the cleanup by “lucky accident.” 

“We just happened to show up at the right time,” Burkett said; he usually tries to pick up trash while he’s out surf-fishing. 

Feinberg said the two were actually planning to check other beaches after seeing Lobsterville Beach in Aquinnah the same day. “It has so much debris, like bottle tops, buckets, everything, and we were thinking, ‘Gosh, we have to come back with some bags to clean up out here,’” she said. 

A variety of items were scattered across the beach, including plastic bottles, a lighter, and a fishing lure. There were also several broken lobster pots, a Gatorade bottle, ropes, Styrofoam, and pieces of plastic.

“I just appreciate how beautiful it is out here, and it’s really upsetting, particularly after a storm like this, and you see all this debris, and you think of what the oceans are filled with,” Feinberg said. “This is a great idea that they’re doing this.”

Lobsterville Beach is the next cleanup target for Island environmentalists. Vineyard Conservation Society director of membership and resource development Signe Benjamin told The Times on Tuesday that while she was at Philbin Beach in Aquinnah recently, another area that accumulated debris, she was told that Lobsterville might have even more trash washed ashore than Squibnocket. 

“Our scouts have reported that Lobsterville is in great need of a cleanup after the storm,” Rich told The Times.

The Beach Be-Frienders will be greeting 2024 with the additional beach cleanup on New Year’s Day, dubbed the “First Day Lobsterville Sweep,” from 1 to 3 pm at Lobsterville.

“We’re hoping to get a lot of helping hands,” she said.