Collection Report Sep 13, 2011

Tuesday, September 13, 7:52 AM. Already a bright, muggy day.

Feeling the glow

Labor Day was well and truly past. The benches, trash cans, lifeguard tower -- stowed away for the year. The sun & sky may not have gotten the message. But the earth had.

Welcome back, mysterious
crawlers of the low-tide line

Autumn's sand trails were back. Sandpipers too, scurrying along the edge of each wave. Along the roads, the leaves of young -- or weak-willed -- maples were already kissed with a hint of red and orange. The earth knows.

Which is why the hot sun and Labor Day remnants strewn across the sand came as a shock. (It was a busy collection, as you'll see.) This twilight time, mid-September, straddles two very different Maines.

Curiously, there was still no wrack-line of Irene debris. The early August wash-in along with Irene's offshore winds really did scour Saco Bay clean. Even so, the ocean still left a couple calling cards:

The NH sewage treatment plant disc
saga continues, and will for years

And another applicator. Sigh.

It's all still out there. It'll make its next appearance when it feels like it. (See Delaware, where heaps of plastic garbage floating in just a week after the big Intl Coastal Cleanup.)

So on to the finds. Zone N first, as always:

177 finds:

• Building materials: 3 (1 chunk asphalt, 2 wooden blocks)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 28
• Fishing misc.: 16 (4 bits rope, 4 claw bands, 6 bits of rope twine, 2 buoy scraps)
• Food-related plastics: 6 (bottle, bottlecap, food wrapper, 2 utensils, straw)
• Food-related metal/glass: 4 (3 cans/scraps, 1 sea glass)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 26 (7 bags/scraps, 3 bandaids, 3 toys (tank tread, "hamburger," squishy foot), theme park wristband, 2 bottlecaps, plastic strapping, chair/umbrella plug, expand-foam tube, 1 scrap >1", 6 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 82 (81 filters, 1 wood filter tip)
• Paper/wood: 11 (10 paper scraps, 1 wooden stick)
• Misc./unique: 1 (fabric scrap)

A little bit of everything, including the partially burned leftovers of at least one massive bonfire (some in this closeup).

Set it, and forget it. BTW, Ruby has a set of plastic food including the same hamburger. Might clean this one up and add it to her collection. Supersize Me.

As always, Zone S had less to offer.

32 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 5
• Fishing misc.: 3 (2 rope scraps, buoy scrap)
• Food-related plastics: 3 (bottle, bottlecap, gum)
• Food-related metal/glass: 2 (seaglass, gum wrapper)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 11 (2 bags/scraps, 1 bottlecap, cord, tennis ball, Hooksett disc, tampon applicator, 2 scraps >1", 2 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 6 (5 filters, 1 rolling paper)
• Paper/wood: 2 (paper scrap, wood clothespin)
• Misc./unique: 0

Oddly, the most interesting find of the week came from here:

"Game ends 12/31/10"

Old, scuffed, battered... But no signs of sealife on it. So... what's the story? Someone's favorite water bottle, reused for months and then lost? A dog toy? Or ocean-borne? I'd love to know.

After the Earl

My last report followed a windy rainshower, and the flotsam was amazing. My September 4th collection followed what could have been a monster. So it's with no small relief that former Category 4 Hurricane Earl (a) lost its gusto, (b) tracked far out into the Atlantic, and (c) passed Maine's coast at low tide.

The morning after revealed a beach looking little different from the week before. Well, with one exception.

Hmm, something's missing...

Dismantling & removing the lifeguard station ahead of Labor Day = respecting Mother Nature. Still, at first it seemed Earl barely registered on Bay View beach. Heck, it didn't even toss about the previous week's abandoned kelp forest.

So I began my collection for the day. And then a funny thing happened. Halfway through, I started seeing something odd.

A weird, pulverized, fiber-y mass started washing in as the tide rose. In all the months I've beachcombed I'd never seen anything like it. It seems Earl had indeed left a parting gift, an organic "carpet" washing up on my shore. Except it wasn't just organics.

Claw band

Over and over, the waves brought bits of floating trash right up to my feet. First a claw band, then a piece of foam. It was astounding.

Another claw band

Another claw band, a gnarled piece of green plastic, a burned piece of wood, a cigarette butt, a bright yellow shard of hard plastic.

Bit of green plastic scrap

For months now I've arrived at the beach "after the fact." My feet reach the sand, and what's happening has already mostly happened. And I have to make educated guesses about where the junk has come from. But to actually see it arrive -- to watch the ocean depositing bits of man-made debris with each wave -- was sobering. And a gift. It made it real. Garbage patches, persistent trash, plastic in seabirds... it's not some farce or fantasy. It's out there, and it washes in with each storm. Even if said storm blessedly spares your home in other, more direct ways.

I only wish I'd had more time to spend at the beach that morning. Who knows how much else I'd have found.

Tidal "carpet" by the time I had to leave

As it was, I already left with a full, and heavy, bag -- and heart. The full collection report is still forthcoming. But I'll close this post with a teaser:

This was no small haul