Beach Fun, Community Action, and Celebration!

Trash Contest Winners

This year’s cleanup turned up some remarkable finds, and our annual Trash Contest highlighted the best of the bunch:

• Most Unusual: A bone that looked like a skull… but turned out to be a bird’s pelvis.
• Most Reusable: A lobster trap in great condition, which we were able to return to its owner.
• Most Mysterious: A lone key on a keychain — who knows what it might unlock?

Strange & Surprising Finds

Every year, the Earth Day Beach Clean-Up turns up more than just bottles and wrappers. Alongside the usual haul of beer bottles, cigarette butts, and plastic bits, volunteers uncovered some truly unusual items this year:

• A giant plastic trashcan lid covered in barnacles
• Multiple lobster pots, old rope, and fishing nets
• A hockey goal stranded in the sand
• A mooring buoy and a refrigerator door
• Odd household items: a hubcap, a car bumper, a squeegee, and a lone shoe
• Rusty scissors, a rusty chain, and an inflated basketball
• Exactly 100 balloons were found

Notably, volunteers reported fewer “nips” (mini liquor bottles) this year, showing some shifting trends in beach litter (thank you Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, for banning nips!). And in a few lucky spots, there was very little trash to be found at all—proof that community efforts are making a difference.