On Saturday, January 12th, Clean Ocean Access (COA) hosted a beach cleanup at Island Park in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where 29 volunteers helped to collect over 200 pounds of marine debris. Located on Aquidneck Island, Island Park sits on a peninsula in northeast Portsmouth. This quaint community was once the site of a popular amusement park before it was destroyed in the infamous Hurricane of 1938.
Despite the cold and windy Saturday afternoon, 29 volunteers gathered to clean the Island Park shoreline and help eliminate marine debris, including Portsmouth town councilors Linda Ujifusa and Mark Ryan, as well as other community members from Aquidneck Island. Together the volunteers worked to collect 210 pounds of trash from the coastline, including 67 plastic bags, 56, plastic beverage bottles, 54 plastic caps and lids, and 40 food wrappers and containers.
COA’s beach cleanups are made possible by the generous sponsorship of People’s Credit Union and their support of a clean local economy. Their sponsorship helps fund the beach cleanup program and supplying volunteers with cleanup kits that include items such as, grabbers, gloves, reusable bags, scales and clipboards.
The 2019 beach cleanup schedule is available online: http://www.cleanoceanaccess.org/calendar/. COA also actively seeks citizen scientists to join the public access monitoring program to help preserve and protect public access to the shoreline. If you are interested in monitoring access points on Aquidneck Island sign up to volunteer online at: www.cleanoceanaccess.org/action/volunteer/.
