A couple weeks ago, a College of Charleston alumna and I went to the Daniel Island sandbar. We did not intend of spending the day cleaning the beach and marsh, but after we arrived, we realized that we would be spending our day cleaning the beach. Because we did not plan for this beach sweep, we did not have gloves or proper shoes, so by the end of the day, we smelled very bad and had many oyster cuts. Fortunately, our friend who took us on the boat had many bags, so we put the litter in the bags we had on the boat. We spent about 2 hours cleaning up the beach, and as soon as we thought the area was clean, we would find more and more trash. We would have stayed longer, but the rising tide forced us to leave. The trash ranged from a wide variety of things. Most of it was plastics that people use daily, consisting of chip bags, beer cans, and lots of to go boxes of food. The worst litter was the styrofoam because it would easily break apart and crumble as we unburied from the mud. Some of the litter we picked up had been there for so long that plants were growing through the litter. The smelliest thing I unfortunately picked up was an old bait bucket. I did not realize that some shrimp had died a very long time ago in the bottom of the bucket, and I accidentally spilled some water that was in the bucket on me. It ruined my day. When we returned to the marina, we all properly disposed of the litter we picked up. Elena, the College of Charleston alumna, and I were both familiar with the aquarium’s website the “Litter Free Digital Journal” because we had worked at the aquarium. We both came to the decision we would clean up that beach every time we went out there because that sandbar is known for having parties on it.

I think the most surprising thing to me about the litter was how similar all the trash was. When I usually do beach sweeps, I find a large diversity of litter, ranging from single use plastics to things I had never seen before. I guess based off of the litter on the sand bar, it shows that it is just ignorant teenagers leaving their beer cans on the beach, so if they get pulled by DNR, they do not get in trouble. This is one of the many frustrating things about teenagers in boats in Charleston. They throw their beer cans into the water to make an “artificial reef” just so they do not in get in trouble for underage drinking. I wish there was some way to stop them from doing this. Hopefully the Litter Free Digital Journal data can be used to show people what kind of effects they are having on our environment and will stop. It is just unfortunate that many people have to spend time picking up after other people. The costa hat and sunglasses are not a part of the litter.