September 23, 1998
Beach Sweep nets low turnout
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Plastic bottles, Styrofoam containers, candy wrappers, hats, straws, paper bags and candles. And cigarette butt after cigarette butt.
These items and much more were part of the debris gathered along city beaches Saturday morning during the 8th Annual Beach Sweep sponsored by the Lake Michigan Federation. A state-wide effort, the Beach Sweep was coordinated locally by the Inland Seas Education Association, who organized 290 volunteers to clean up the shoreline running from Manistee to Emmet counties. The group targeted the Open Space, West End and Clinch Park beaches in Traverse City for their efforts this year.
"Each individual does make a difference, because if they weren't there the trash would stay," said Sally Somsel of East Bay Township, who coordinated the volunteers for the Inland Seas Education Association. "We have one lady in Old Mission who every year cleans up two to four miles of beach herself."
The beach sweep is held in conjunction with the Center for Marine Conservation's annual International Coastal Cleanup, where volunteers around the world pick up and track debris along coastlines. The volunteers note the kinds and quantity of debris on a data card, which are turned into the Center for Marine Conservation for compilation. In Michigan over the past seven years, volunteers have patrolled 810 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and removed 45,853 pounds of debris.
Somsel reported that in some areas cleaned up this year there was more trash than in previous years, especially more bottles and beverage containers. Normally the volunteers do not pick up as many bottles and cans as other states because of Michigan's bottle return law.
Occasionally trash from other states finds its way to northern Michigan beaches. Volunteers every year find many deflated balloons, often released in streamers elsewhere in the Midwest. The wind patterns bring them to Antrim and Leelanau counties, where they break and wash up on the shore.
"The balloons are a problem up here, they seem to accumulate," Somsel said. "Animals try to eat them and choke so we have to clean them up."
For kids, the beach clean up can seem like a treasure hunt as not all the debris found is junk. Ryan Gerstner, 8, and his younger brother, Jacob, 3, helped their father gather a bag of trash after a fishing trip to the Open Space beach. Ryan proudly toted home a large red candle he found on the beach, a small treasure among their large bag of trash.
"We were just fishing a saw a bunch of junk," said Ryan's father Eric Gerstner, a city resident. "We read about this and came to get a bag to fill. We'd like to do more of this."
Volunteer Bethany Renfer of Lake Ann found a pair of pants, complete with wallet in the back pocket, while picking up trash. The pants and wallet were soon matched up with the owner. Renfer, a veteran of beach sweeps on the eastern side of the state, worked for a year with the Clean Water Action Organization in Lansing.
"We need to do this to raise awareness of our water," said Renfer as she picked up debris next to the Open Space beaches. "Look at the warning two days ago in Benzonia, they have to boil their water."
While pleased with the turn out in the region, local organizers were disappointed this year when only nine of the 290 volunteers working with Somsel cleaned beaches in Traverse City. Some of the most heavily used beaches in northern Michigan are in town and they need more volunteers to clean them up.
"We've had a real low response in the Traverse City area," said Somsel, a geologist who has volunteered with Inland Seas for years. "Local elementary school ecology classes who helped with the project in the past did not volunteer this year."