Collection Report June 23, 2012

Saturday, June 23, 2012. 8:00AM Bay View beach, Saco, Maine.

Summer in Maine, back again

This day marked a very big milestone -- the completion of my second full year studying Bay View! Though there is much to reflect on, for now, into the collection.

The fierce storm of June 3 was already fading from Bay View's mind.

Much of the advance line of dunegrass survived; later tides & winds quickly resculpted the shore to brush over the erosion & damage. In fact, the storm & outwash actually created a nice, long flat terrace between the dunegrass & foreshore. The perfect place for summer crowds to pitch their tents. Nature is a marvel.

Speaking of summer crowds, they're back. The trash signature proved that. Zone N:

138 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 10
• Fishing misc.: 6 (4 rope, claw band, trap tag)
• Food-related plastics: 20 (2 bottles, 4 bottlecaps, 2 cup-top scraps, 11 food wrappers, straw)
• Food-related metal/glass: 10 (bottle, bottlecap, 8 pcs foil)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 34 (8 plastic bags/baggies, hairclip, 4 scraps <1", bucket handle, 2 figurines, sand rake, 2 lightsticks, shovel handle, 9 plastic packaging, lubricating oil tube, black tape, strapping, tarp scrap, mesh)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 34 (32 filters, 2 packaging)
• Paper/wood: 22
• Misc./unique: 2 (fabric scraps)

Yes, the summer crowds are back. And as always, they congregate at Zone N, leaving the southern area much freer of debris. Zone S:

49 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 7
• Fishing misc.: 4 (rope, trap scrap, trap tag, shotgun shell)
• Food-related plastics: 9 (bottle, 3 bottlecaps, 4 food wrappers, straw)
• Food-related metal/glass: 3 (can, 2 sea glass)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 12 (baggie, 3 balloons, balloon ribbon, bleach bottlecap, 3 scraps >1", 2 scraps <1", nonfood packaging)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 9
• Paper/wood: 4
• Misc./unique: 1 (fabric)

No surprises here. This is the debris that beachgoers leave at a sunny, summery beach. I saw it in summer 2010. And summer 2011. And now summer 2012. How many more summers, until we finally change the game?

---

And there we are. Full circle, again. Two summers, two falls, two winters, two springs. 14,000 pieces of trash, Hurricane Earl, TS Irene, the December Storm of 2010, and June's no-name beast. Ice crystals, sand dollars, rivulets, beach cusps. Dog walkers, wrack lines, sea glass, dunegrass. Sand bars, beached boat, demolished convent, seal carcass.

Bay View has been such an eye-opening place. It taught me that in a plastic world, there is no "away." Yet now I find that lesson coming home to roost about 5 miles south, at Curtis Cove. Where there are no tourists, but there's more garbage per foot than the worst day that Bay View threw at me. So much more to learn, and to share.

For the moment, I leave Bay View to rest, though probably to return now & then. Curtis Cove will keep me -- and sadly generations after me -- plenty busy.

Collection Report April 25, 2012

Wednesday, April 25. 9:15AM. 55 degrees, bright sun, hour after low tide. Had been away for two weeks, as I spent the previous week visiting The Mouse with the family. First missed week on-site since June last year! So, what would the extra week's worth of tides bring in the way of flotsam?

This, and... well, not a lot more. This can was actually among the most interesting finds of the day. More on why down below. But as you can see by this shot...

...the beach was again a clean slate. The little wrack that did exist (mostly in Zone N) was old, dried reeds from 2011 still rolling around:

I've gone on for some months about the changes at Bay View over the past year. But with spring now "sprung," this image tell the story the best:

In an age of global sea-level rise and beach loss, the dunes at Bay View are actually advancing. 20 feet down the beach slope just in the past year! That can only happen if the energy of the sea lets it happen. A few bad waves, and you get this:

The energy coming in here is just weaker than it was a year ago. Waves aren't making it as high up the slope. And they're carrying far less detritus -- natural and manmade -- than before. The best logic behind this is that the seafloor is shifting. Sand bars have reared their heads at Bay View during very low tides. Natural buffers, absorbing the fury of the ocean -- and blocking seafloor debris. For how long? Don't know.

But for now, they cause this result. Zone N:

31 finds:

• Building materials: 4 (asphalt)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 4 (3 foam scraps, 1 cup bottom)
• Fishing misc.: 0
• Food-related plastics: 3 (2 wrappers, 1 straw)
• Food-related metal/glass: 2 (can, can scrap)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 6 (2 toys, tennisball, package scrap, 2 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 11
• Paper/wood: 1 (paper scrap)
• Misc./unique: 0

A few locally lost toys for my daughter's collection. A few scraps. A few thoughtless smokers. A rotted can...

Quickly over to Zone S:

9 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 2
• Fishing misc.: 3 (fishing line, shotgun shell, shell wadding)
• Food-related plastics: 1 (bottlecap)
• Food-related metal/glass: 0
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 0
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 2
• Paper/wood: 1 (bedpost finial)
• Misc./unique: 0

A bedpost finial? Really?

So the game here has changed. But back to that aluminum can.

You've surely seen those enviromentalist site lists, showing how long things take to break down:

If you say "It takes 200 years for an aluminum can to break down!" and I can find one that's rotting away after ~6 months, you risk losing me for everything else you try to say. We all love round numbers; but we're a little more partial to our own eyes.

Collection Report April 9, 2012

Good morning from Bay View beach, Monday April 9. 8:05AM, low tide. Cool, colorful morning with bands of thick low clouds.

Being just after full moon, this "spring tide" was one of the lowest of the month. And again in the distance you can see Bay View's new sandbar peeking out from the receding waters. The same sandbar that seems to be vastly changing the shape of the beach this year -- and altering how much washes in, organic or otherwise.

The ultra-low tide exposed a complete bed of live sand dollars, including these folks:

"Fancy meeting you here"

And the terrace had another surprise -- in one small section the churning waves had sorted & collected a pile of boulders:

Only this one spot in some
600 ft of beach did this

A little more of the magic of the ocean.

The latest overnight high-tide -- also being a spring tide -- was one of the stronger ones since last November, pushing all the old wrack almost up to the dune's edge, leaving a blank slate in its place.

Much of this is new, clean sand dragged in, probably from the sandbar. Outside my zones, lobster traps that had been fully exposed were now half-buried in soft sand. All that energy & sand -- but zero new wrack -- is usually a harbinger of a small collection.

And sure enough, Zone N:

30 finds:

• Building materials: 9 (6 asphalt, 2 concrete, 1 asphalt)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 1
• Fishing misc.: 4 (3 rope, 1 claw band)
• Food-related plastics: 3 (straw, PS cup top, microwave plate scrap)
• Food-related metal/glass: 1 (gum wrapper)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 2 (rubber chunk, sand bag)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 7
• Paper/wood: 1 (paper cup)
• Misc./unique: 2 (cords)

The only find of note:

When sandbags are made from plastic fiber, and they fail & wash out to sea, they don't go away.

Zone S:

9 finds:

• Building materials: 3 (asphalt, shingle, brick sliver)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 1
• Fishing misc.: 3 (1 rope, 2 lobster trap vinyl scraps)
• Food-related plastics: 0
• Food-related metal/glass: 1 (sea glass)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 0
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 1
• Paper/wood: 0
• Misc./unique: 0

Bay View's new personality started weaving itself together in late November, and it continues. The gunk is all out there; it's just chosen to spare Bay View beach this winter and spring.

About 5 miles south, at Curtis Cove in Biddeford, the story is vastly different. Here's just the derelict fishing rope that washed into 150 feet of beach there during the same week:

Think you know what's happening in the ocean? Dig deeper.

Collection Report July 31, 2011

Still playing catchup with the backlogged cleanups. So today, welcome back to Bay View, July 31 edition!

6:50 AM on a Sunday, and already hopping

Lots of dawn-peepers & dogwalkers enjoying the early morning quiet. More bright, beautiful sun promising another amazing -- and crowded -- beach day.

The headline for this week's finds would read: "Man Visits Busy Beach, Finds Trash." The summer tides are weak. Little seaweed is washing in, or shells, or other flotsam. So what ends up in my trash bag is just a cross-section of Maine beach life. Maybe interesting enough for that reason alone. But by now, very predictable. Such as:

Every week

So this will be a pretty quick report, without the ooh's and ahh's of long-distance journeys. First, as always, Zone N:

236 finds:

• Building materials: 2 (asphalt, fence slat)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 16
• Fishing misc.: 3 (bits of fishing rope twine)
• Food-related plastics: 41 (27 food wrappers!, 7 bottlecaps, bottle, 2 straws, 2 gum, 2 cup lids)
• Food-related metal/glass: 21 (5 cans, 6 caps, 8 wrappers, 2 glass scraps)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 29 (9 bags/scraps, cap, 3 toys/scraps, 2 ribbon/tape, 2 beach furniture, 11 scraps >1", 1 scrap <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 81 (79 filters, 2 packaging)
• Paper/wood: 41 (8 firework sticks, 5 firework casings, 28 scraps)
• Misc./unique: 5 (sock, 4 fabric pieces)

See? Beachgoers. End of story. But 27 food wrappers... Wow? Or the inevitable result of a culture of single-serve snacks packed in plastic tubs, wrapped in plastic film, handed to us in a plastic bag?

Quickly over to Zone S:

37 finds:

• Building materials: 1 (wood block)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 11
• Fishing misc.: 6 (2 rope bits, 4 twine)
• Food-related plastics: 5 (bottle, 3 straw wrappers, straw)
• Food-related metal/glass: 0
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 4 (2 bag scraps, toy scrap, firecracker)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 8 (7 filters, 1 packaging)
• Paper/wood: 2 (popsicle stick, paper scrap)
• Misc./unique: 0

Still too little here to feel "natural"; I suspect a weekly local cleanup effort. Which, if true, kind of kills the value of Zone S. Still, until I know for sure, I'll keep at it. If there's anything here worth a glance, it's the batch of blue Nerf-like foam, some of which also ended up (started up?) in Zone N. Also, the fishing rope comes from this totem pole from the prior week. Cute when it was made. Now? Just more litter.

Anyway, that's July for the record books. Summertime, and the picking is easy. On to August!

Collection Report July 24, 2011

Sunday, July 24, 7:15AM, the tail end of a sweltering week. And even now the parking lot was already full. Sunday mornings seem to bring lots of dawn-watchers and dog-walkers. And who could blame them?

There's nothing like the beach under a swift sunrise

It was a busy, messy week. And the evidence lay all around. Another day, another firecracker...

There's nowhere to hide

And maybe another Flotsam Diaries mascot?

Anyone know what this little
magnetized pivot-head guy is?

Here's what the day brought. Zone N:

228 finds:

• Building materials: 3 (asphalt, brick, slat)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 13
• Fishing misc.: 6 (5 rope twine, claw band)
• Food-related plastics: 31 (2 bottles, 5 caps, 3 lids, 3 chewing gum, 12 food/straw wrappers, knife, 5 straws)
• Food-related metal/glass: 19 (2 cans, 4 bottles, 4 caps, 8 foil wrappers, sea glass)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 42 (10 bags/scraps, 2 balloons, bandaid, 7 toys/scraps, 5 firecrackers, 2 twist-ties, 4 nylon ribbon/cord, 3 scraps >1", 8 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 72 (70 cigarettes, 2 packaging)
• Paper/wood: 34 (12 firecracker sticks, 3 popsicle sticks, 19 paper frags)
• Misc./unique: 8 (2 flipflops, 2 scraps fabric, battery, dessicant, zipper, cord)

What happens at the end of a day to could compel anyone to walk off and forget a 3-foot-long inflatable happy-face float??

I'm glad they did. It wsa the highlight in a dull day. Summer collections are, in general, dull. Beachgoer stuff left behind by beachgoers. It's the storms of winter that really show just what's out there in the ocean -- that tell of long travels, huge swells, crashing waves. On the other hand, summer beach "stuff" becomes the faded, brittle, bryozoan-encrusted flotsam of winter. So getting 228 pieces of it off the beach this day still feels good.

Now, on to the conundrum that is Zone S:

23 finds:

• Building materials: 1 (asphalt)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 2
• Fishing misc.: 5 (rope pieces)
• Food-related plastics: 4 (3 wrappers, 1 straw)
• Food-related metal/glass: 0
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 4 (tampon-unused, glowstick, twist tie, 1 scrap <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 6
• Paper/wood: 0
• Misc./unique: 1 (thread of fabric)

If I was suspicious before, I'm now all but certain that this isn't a natural spread. 10 times the amount of trash from Zone N to Zone S? Unheard-of last summer. But without any evidence of what's happening yet, all I can do is keep walking week after week and record it. I do think I've had about enough feminine hygiene products for now, though, thanks.

This week the finds may have been dull. But still, the day wasn't. It started with that gorgeous low sun bursting through the clouds. And it ended with some neat sights down at Zone S. I've talked about the dunes reclaiming the beach there. Here finally is a picture. (Solid yellow line shows last year's fence/dune line; the arrows show all the new growth.)

A dozen+ feet of new dune. Cool.

The trend the world over is dunes receding, eroding, dying. Not here at Bay View. Here they're muscling their way back toward the foreshore. I wonder why?

And to end the week, an impromptu art installation/totem pole. I don't know what it means...

Don't see this every day

...But I like it. You just never know what the next week will bring.

Collection Report July 15, 2011

Another perfect morning, and a message from the dawn...

No, you're not wigging out, it's upside-down

If you want to be first to the beach in Maine in July, you've got to get there before 7:30AM.

This was going to be an interesting pickup. For one thing, energy in the waves had brought in various sea-going bits and bobs. From organics all alone...

"Mush" bits pock-marking outflow

...to organics tagging along on plastics:

Tagging along on a piece of plastic

Algae/bryozoa on this plastic sleeve

And then, to top of the day, another one of these.

Awesome. Another one.

Again? Really? Anyway, the totals. Zone N:

323 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 35
• Fishing misc.: 13 (rope, 4 twine, 5 claw bands, trap tag, shotgun shell, bag of bait)
• Food-related plastics: 38 (including 24 food/straw wrappers/packaging!)
• Food-related metal/glass: 13 (5 caps, 3 glass scraps, 4 foil wrappers)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 52 (14 plastic bags/scraps, 8 personal care (lids/medicines), 4 toys/scraps, 4 ribbon, wristband, 2 firecrackers, pen cap, umbrella top, bracelet, 5 scraps >1", 11 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 70 (67 filters, 3 packaging)
• Paper/wood: 94 (57 firecracker sticks, 5 wood scraps, 32 napkins/random paper)
• Misc./unique: 8 (thong underwear, 2 socks, pair of shoes, flipflop, string, piece of fabric)

Wow. Now that's a lot of junk for one week. Largely explained by firecrackers & smokers. But still, an amazing amount of garbage. And a very colorful day, with a mix of yesterday and yesteryear. A couple of the highlights below. First, more of those Canadian lobster claw bands, all pristine.

Found a dozen, or more, since June 2

Too many of these have come in now to be coincidence. Some kind of incident happened in Canadian waters in early May (can't say whether big or small), and we're still seeing the repercussions of it down here. The ocean's all connected after all.

The other highlight: a gray pen cap that looked a -lot- like the weird little firecrackers that have also been washing up throughout the same time period. (Related??)

Spot the pen cap (OK, it's easy)

Hopefully you see now my confusion when the first of these little busted-up pieces of gray hollow plastic came in!

On to Zone S:

19 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 6
• Fishing misc.: 1 (fishing rope twine)
• Food-related plastics: 0
• Food-related metal/glass: 0
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 7 (3 bags/scraps, tampon applicator, and tampon (unused), firecracker, 1 scrap <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 5
• Paper/wood: 0
• Misc./unique: 0

19 finds, against 323 just 150 feet away?? That's not natural. Maybe the condos bordering Zone S have hired cleaning help, or are voluntarily picking up. Dunno. I doubt this stretch is suddenly so clean simply because of encroaching dunes. Anyway, other than that, and yet another tampon applicator (which does seem completely unrelated to the unused tampon and tampon bag also found), Zone S is dull.

So there you go. A wild day, a good day to be a Flotsam Diarist. And more proof that every week may have its share of surprises.

Collection Report June 20-23, 2011

My first collection report of Year 2!

Bay View beach. Saco, Maine. Monday, June 20. 8:10AM

Low 60s and bright sun

A day of the beautiful:

A world in bloom

And ugly:

Balloons that go up come down, like
this one, floated in on rockweed

And typical:

A very common brand at Bay View

As Al the Trashpaddler in Massachusetts says to this company that packs almost everything in plastic and styrofoam (or indeed both at the same time), "What Are You Thinkin'?"

So what would grace the shores on this first week of a new collection year? Zone N:

194 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 49
• Fishing misc.: 21 (5 rope, 5 rope twine, 7 claw bands, trap tag, trap clamp, 2 shotgun shell waddings)
• Food-related plastics: 20 (bottle cap, 2 cups, 12 wrappers, 3 straws, 2 chewing gum)
• Food-related metal/glass: 4 (2 bottle caps, 2 foil wrappers)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 21 (5 bag scraps, 4 balloons, 3 strappings, silly band, backpack cinch, 7 scraps <1", 2 scraps >1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 63 (57 filters, 2 plastic tips, 3 cigar protectors, cig pack)
• Paper/wood: 13 (7 wrappers, 6 scraps/napkins)
• Misc./unique: 1 (rubber offcut)

A pretty big, very summer-y haul. The cigarettes, food plastics, and styrofoam are all mostly local, recent drops. But plenty is still washing in. Not likely that a beachgoer brought these:

The fishing gear

or these:

Shredded & tortured

On June 23, I returned to finish up the week, visiting Zone S. Here's what I uncovered there:

113 finds:

• Building materials: 2 (wooden slats/blocks)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 44
• Fishing misc.: 18 (9 rope bits, 3 rope twine, 2 trap tags, 3 claw bands, 1 tiny buoy fragment)
• Food-related plastics: 8 (bottle cap, 5 wrappers, brittle milk jug handle, six-pack ring)
• Food related metal/glass: 4 (sea glass)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 13 (2 bags/scraps, balloon, tampon applicator, toy google eye, 2 scraps >1", 6 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 21 (20 filters, 1 bit of packaging)
• Paper/wood: 3
• Misc./unique: 0

Another good bit of fishing gear, including my first 2011 trap tag. (Dark gray this year.) A whole mess of styrofoam bits (most likely blown down from Zone N and points north). And oh joy:

Another tampon applicator

That brings my total of those this year to "officially too many." As with all the others, it probably entered the Bay from a river after being flushed down a toilet.

What happens in a drain, or a gutter, doesn't stay there. It's all heading to the ocean. One way or another.