Collection Report Dec 5, 2011

With Christmas & Hannukah festivities now fading into the past, it's time to play catch-up with these collection reports. So, Monday, December 5. 12:15, low tide, light breeze, & a glimmering terrace as the sun peeked through partly cloudy skies.

A fairly low-energy week judging by the lack of wrack. But, this was the week where the personal became the very public.

Happy news? Or sad?

Don't. Flush. Plastics.

My first hypodermic; needle intact

I'd be just as glad to go another year & a half until the next hypodermic. This one clearly came from the sea -- it was faded, cracked, abraded. One wonders what its story was -- a hospital, home health care, back alley? One shouldn't need safety gloves to dig in the sand.

Anyway, on to Zone N:

74 finds:

• Building materials: 7 (6 asphalt, 1 roof tile)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 14
• Fishing misc.: 7 (5 rope scraps, vinyl trap coating scrap, claw band)
• Food-related plastics: 3 (food wrapper, straw wrapper, silverware scrap)
• Food-related metal/glass: 6 (aluminum can, glass bottle, 4 sea glass)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 6 (tampon applicator, hypodermic, pregnancy test, bandaid, 1 scrap >1", 1 scrap <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 25 (23 filters, 2 packaging)
• Paper/wood: 3 (2 food wrappers, scrap)
• Misc./unique: 3 (iron fence hook, 2 flip-flops)

Many of the cigarettes were old and had been kicked around for months (or years?). They collect up in the little nook by the access point where a large drift-log makes a shelter from the wind.

The personal care products are troubling. Not least of which because at least the needle & applicator could have come from anywhere from Halifax, Nova Scotia down to Boston. Or even farther south. How do you stop it if you can't tell where it started? It's everybody's problem... which I guess means anybody, anywhere could start being the solution, right?

Zone S:

24 finds:

• Building materials: 6 (5 asphalt, 1 brick)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 2
• Fishing misc.: 5 (rope scrap, 3 vinyl trap coatings, claw band)
• Food-related plastics: 1 (wrapper scrap)
• Food-related metal/glass: 1 (sea glass)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 4 (balloon string, 1 scrap >1", 2 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 3
• Paper/wood: 0
• Misc./unique: 2 (fabric pieces)

Take away the asphalt chunks and cigarettes, and this was a light week. Number-wise. I refuse to call finding a used tampon applicator and a sharp syringe "a good day." Your mileage may vary.