Our Island boasts gorgeous beaches. Sadly, too many are not pristine. For the past two years, Beach BeFrienders has worked tirelessly every month to rid our shores of trash. Since June 2024 alone, they have collected 1,092 pounds of debris. Among the 13,771 collected items are a disturbing amount of plastic, lobster buoys, lines, nets, traps, and ropes, as well as shoes and slippers, champagne glasses, phones, batteries, and, somewhat inexplicably, a coconut.
Laurisa Rich spearheads Beach BeFrienders’ multi-pronged efforts. She had participated in the Vineyard Conservation Society’s (VCS’s) annual Earth Day Beach Cleanup since moving here 25 years ago, but she knew something more had to be done after a bad winter storm in 2023. “I went to Philbin for a beach walk on a beautiful morning after everything cleared. I saw a horrific accumulation of little bits of shiny plastic all the way toward the cliffs and just burst into tears. It was such a big eyesore. The thought of it covering all the creatures’ habitat and knowing that it would either be washed away or just buried in the next storm was just so sad. When I went to start picking things up, I was overwhelmed with the scope and wishing for more of a community to process the emotions around it as well as to pick it all up.”
Rich approached VCS, and they agreed to sponsor Beach BeFrienders, which launched on Earth Day that same year. Each month, a core volunteer group, visitors, residents, and students participate in a beach cleanup for a designated town. At their recent effort in Oak Bluffs, in just two hours, they collected about 220 pounds of trash.
During the cleanups, participants check in with one of the hosts. After everyone collects the trash, volunteers sort and count it. Items are either upcycled, recycled, donated, or properly disposed of. Each month, participants receive some kind of thank-you gift. In the past, these have included Mocha Motts gift coupons for coffee or hot chocolate, and those for ice cream at Mad Martha’s, Dairy Queen, Dream Catchers, and Ice Box. Nomans and Little House Café have also offered discounts on lunches.
But Beach BeFrienders does so much more. “We encourage people to clean up beaches they love and have access to on their own,” says Rich. “We do that by making Beach BeFriender kits distributed to all the libraries.” Each one includes a bag made from recycled materials and an information card. “We used to have stickers for the Island transport stations to accept them for free, but now any Beach Befriender bag of debris can simply be dropped off without a sticker.”
Rich just completed a six-week collaboration with the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School’s experiential learning program. The middle schoolers “BeFriended” the beaches in Aquinnah to collect debris. “Then we had a wonderful day of sorting and counting each piece and making art around it as a group project,” Rich reports. “We hope to continue it in the winter months. I’ve also participated with the Interact Club at the high school, which does community service work. They made Beach BeFrienders kits for the libraries.”
Another part of the group’s mission is to upcycle some fun finds. Rich has conducted workshops for the West Tisbury library, Martha’s Vineyard Museum, and Trustees of Reservations. They have included making Christmas ornaments and bags or backpacks from the oyster aquaculture cages to collect beach debris.
Looking forward, Rich says, “I’m also working on a big cleanup. On the north shore, embedded lobster traps and rope snarls take a real effort to extract, either by land or sea. I’ve been working with private landowners and the environmental state police to arrange a landing craft to help remove some of the stuff. It’s too heavy and disintegrated to walk it out very far. The Chilmark Fire Department may be helping, along with other Island groups.”
Asked about some memorable finds, Rich shares that two summers ago, they picked up a bottle with a message from Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was from students there expressing concern about climate change and global pollution. She adds, “Then, last spring, someone found a bottle from Nantucket. That launched several jokes about our cleaning up Nantucket trash.”
Beach BeFrienders meets every fourth Saturday. The next one is Saturday, Dec. 28. Check in at Philbin or Lobsterville Beach between 8 am and 10 am. The trash tally occurs from 10:30 am to 11:30 pm inside the Aquinnah fire station.
Collect debris anytime using one of the free Beach BeFriender cleanup kits available at any Island library. Disposal is free at all transfer stations. For more information, contact beachbefrienders@vineyardconservation.org or 508-693-9588, or visit the events page on the Vineyard Conservation Society’s website, vineyardconservation.org.
Save the Date: April 19, 2025, is the Annual Vineyard Conservation Society Earth Day Beach Cleanup.
