Collection Report June 7, 2011

Catching up again. The meat of this report already went into my final tally for the year, but I still want to get it written up, if briefly. So. June 7, 9:15AM. And it seems that Parks & Rec got a little creative with the log forest that rolled in during late May.

A totem pole?

Weather was slightly cooler for this week. But there was still plenty of evidence of beachgoers. What evidence?

Bonfires

The burn-it-all ritual
(See the aluminum? It does burn away)

A poor showing

That last shot isn't just ugly. It's dangerous:

How much plastic/foil is
now shredding a seabird's belly?

So there we go. Beach weather, for the most part, is back. With all its fun, sun, and sundries. What does that mean for this, the very last week of Year 1 in my Bay View tally? First, Zone N:

146 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 59!
• Fishing misc.: 3 (claw band, lobster trap coating, twine from rope)
• Food-related plastics: 8 (straw, burnt bit, 2 bottle caps, oil/sauce cup, straw wrapper, pretzel bag, Hillshire Farm cheese wrapper)
• Food-related metal/glass: 14 (5 bottles, 1 bottle neck, 5 cans, 3 bottle caps)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 13 (game target, bag, film, dessicant, pen cap, faded toy crab, price-tag tie, 6 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 32 (26 filters, 1 plastic tip, chewing tobacco box, 4 cigar ends)
• Paper/wood: 14 (Bud Lime box, 11 tissues/napkins, 2 toy price/name tags)
• Misc./unique: 3 (2 smore handles, string)

Where could 59 pieces of styrofoam come from?? Well, 52 seem to have come from this one thing:

Crushed cooler

Out of one, many.

The styrofoam scraps and clamshells; beer bottles, beer cans, cigarettes stuffed neatly into the sand; straws, wrappers, and price tags -- This is a full-on summer signature.

Which, I suppose, is little surprise. So what happened down the shore at Zone S?

57 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 26
• Fishing misc.: 1 (claw band)
• Food-related plastics: 1 (coffee cup lid)
• Food-related metal/glass: 0
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 16 (4 firecracker/flare caps, 2 strings, 2 bits of fuzz, 2 bag/film scraps, tiny ball/bead, 5 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 9
• Paper/wood: 4 (cup, 3 napkin scraps)
• Misc./unique: 0

A wild difference between Zones N and S. Pretty good proof of where the people spent their time the past week. Yet all the blown-in styrofoam suggests just how far lightweight plastic will travel given half a chance.

All told, this last week of my Year 1 at Bay View ties things up and brings them nicely full circle. Summer is back. And I find myself missing the magical solitude of winter on a Maine beach.

Year 2, here we come!