Collection Report Dec 8-9, 2010

Welcome to Bay View beach, on a sunny 28-degree December 8.

Bright sun helps when it's 28; as do 3 layers

It had been another week of heavy storms and winds from the SE -- from the ocean. High tide was near, and nature was very much on display.

December on a deserted beach can be magical

But, just like the previous week, there wasn't much garbage to see. A stroll along a clean beach is always a nice treat. Still, I didn't dare to hope that "I didn't find it" meant "It's not there."

I decided I had to come back to check out the low-tide line; that way I'd know for sure what was there. So, I did. The next day, December 9, was my birthday. And at 9:30AM on my birthday (at a balmy 21 degrees!), I arrived back to Bay View to this:

Really?

Really???

I guess there is just no cutoff date for thoughtlessness. But I can't get my head around hot chocolate, a Pepsi from the local Pizza Hut, and half a dozen raw eggs on a 20-degree night.

Well, what can you do? As it turns out, that was about the only new junk there was to see. All the expected low-tide-line debris? Barely a scrap.

So, as with December 8, I used the time to soak in more of nature's works.

Sea trees du jour

"Cobbled" together by nature, just cuz

Anyway, business at hand. The Zone N haul:

28 finds:

• Building materials: 1 (chunk of asphalt)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 1
• Fishing misc.: 1 (scrap of lobster trap)
• Food-related plastics: 2 (lid, whole Pepsi cup from Pizza Hut, w/ straw)
• Food-related metal/glass: 7 (sea glass)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 5 (kite string reel, 2 wrapper scraps, end-of-finger bandaid, white scrap)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 4
• Paper/wood: 5 (egg carton, coffee cup, cup sleeve, 2 gum wrappers)
• Misc./unique: 2 (long pink string, waistband)

Pretty much nothing to say about this lot. What about Zone S?

21 finds:

• Building material: 4 (chunk asphalt, chunk of burned asphalt, 2 bits of bathroom tile)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 0
• Fishing misc.: 5 (bits of lobster trap coatings)
• Food-related plastics: 0
• Food-related metal/glass: 10 (2 aluminum scraps, 2 sea glass, 6 fresh glass)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 1 (small blue scrap)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 1
• Paper/wood: 0
• Misc./unique: 0

Again, little ooh/ahh factor. Except perhaps:

Life, the universe, & everything?

OK. So, two weeks of storm, wind, & tidal madness that does this to a bench at Ocean Park, a mile to the north:

Glad I don't have to dig this out

Yet over two days I find only a few dozen objects, many of which came from some local miscreants.

Why so little? Well, one of three reasons:

• The Gulf of Maine is strikingly clean. 
• The storms actually kept trash offshore.
• The storms buried the debris under a foot of sand.

Which is it? I'm already working up a post answering that. But I'll give you a hint. It isn't #1.