Medical waste, yellow police tape, a voodoo doll, a bowling pin, a hog's head, a weight bench with a set of weights and an old refrigerator filled with meat are just a few odd items 5,400 volunteers recently hauled from Texas beaches.
After April's large-scale Texas General Land Office Adopt-A-Beach Spring Cleanup, the Lone Star coastline has lost 196,875 pounds – in garbage.
Jerry Patterson, commissioner of Texas General Land Office, issued a press release saying he is pleased with the impressive turnout to beautify beaches.
"What people find on our Adopt-A-Beach cleanups never ceases to amaze me," he said. "Anyone who loves the beach should be grateful for what this small army of volunteers accomplished."
Beachcombers also helped identify and recover two nests belonging to the endangered Kemps ridley sea turtle in Boca Chica.
Other odd items included a plastic cowboy, a Korean business card, a Bible, a Mexican kitchen doll, a wig, a pregnancy test and an Ecuadorian cigarette box.
At the program's inception in 1986, heaps of trash from international ships washed ashore when it was common for people to dump refuse overboard. Adopt-A-Beach has successfully collected enough data to pass an international shipping treaty mandating that people discard garbage while boats are in port. Volunteers record their findings for marine garbage studies to reduce waste along Texas' beaches.
Well-known sponsors of the program include National Oilwell Varco, Royal Caribbean, ExxonMobil, Halliburton and Starbucks.
The 367-mile Texas coastline becomes riddled with marine debris when currents in the Gulf of Mexico converge and carry it ashore. Volunteers have removed more than 7,000 tons of litter since the program began. Some of the debris travels from as far away as South America.
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