Collection Report Aug 19, 2011

Gotten behind on these again! Then again, if I'm being honest, I find summer collection reports, well, dull. Sure, there's a little that washes in. But there's so much local beachgoer garbage. Such a stark reminder of why it's such an uphill climb trying to restore & reclaim the pristine beauty of wild places.

Still, 7:15AM on Friday, August 19 was gorgeous, no two ways about it.

Rise and shine

And nothing was going to spoil the enjoyment of a nice walk in the early day. Not this:

Cheers!

Or this:

Art!

Instead, I took a little time to study the beauty, like the dune grass that is quickly reclaiming several feet of foreshore.

This was beach in 2010

Funny. Dune grass, like a piece of flotsam, has a story to tell. When it's been windy, the blades bend & drag through the sand, leaving concentric rings (like these from back in Oct 2010). When it's been calm, no rings. Even without Weather Underground, it doesn't take long to see that there's no sign of strong winds at the beach this week. (Remember, this is pre-Irene.)

So, not surprisingly, a busy, summery collection. Zone N:

198 finds:

• Building materials: 3 (2 wood, 1 tile)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 11
• Fishing misc.: 13 (5 rope, 4 claw bands, 3 rope twine, shotgun shell wadding)
• Food-related plastics: 31 (12 food wrappers, 7 straw wrappers, 4 bottle caps, bottle, straw, fork scrap, bread tag, gum, milk cap ring, cap seal, fruit label) 
• Food-related metal/glass: 11 (3 cans, glass bottle, 6 caps, foil food wrapper)
• Nonfood/unknowng plastics: 36 (11 bags/scraps, 4 toys/scraps, 2 non-food caps, 2 strappings, 2 ribbon, footing, bandaid, 3 scraps >1", 10 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 71 (69 cigarettes, filter tip, Kodiak pack)
• Paper/wood: 18 (12 paper scraps, chip, popsicle stick, firework, 3 firework sticks)
• Misc./unique: 4 (2 string bits, 2 metal barrettes)

Except for a few left-behinds from the Sep '10 seaweed wash-in, this is a summer signature. Picked up another intact shovel for the collection, and a nice French-made barrette with turquoise stones. And this -very- salt-scarred steel bottlecap.

Help me!

On to Zone S:

22 finds:

• Building materials: 1 (brick)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 5
• Fishing misc.: 2
• Food-related plastics: 6 (2 bottle caps, 3 food wrappers, gum)
• Food-related metal/glass: 0
• Nonfood/unknowng plastics: 3 (firecracker, 2 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 5 (3 filters, 2 packaging)
• Paper/wood: 0
• Misc./unique: 0

Yawn. A 20-second walk from Zone N to Zone S. A completely different world.