Students met Saturday morning outside of the Reed Union Building to participate in International Coastal Cleanup (ICC). ICC is an annual day when people all over the world clean up garbage on coasts and in waterways, always taking place on the third Saturday in September. This year, about 25 Behrend students participated, most of which went to the mouth of Four-Mile creek. The other students hiked into the gorge to clean up garbage.

 

“It’s an event that happens across the globe. So organizations all get together and then we go out and we clean up trash around the coasts,” explained Celeste Makay, junior environmental science major and Vice President of Greener Behrend. “[The focus is on] mainly lakes and the ocean. Some people don’t have that, so they go to streams and rivers.”

 

According to the Ocean Conservancy, ICC began over 30 years ago and has grown since its inception. Since it began in 1985, 249,391,051 pounds of trash has been collected and 12,949,862 volunteers have participated in ICC. Volunteers have held cleanups throughout the U.S. and in more than 100 countries each year. The Ocean Conservancy focuses on a number of issues related to the ocean, one of the key pieces being plastic pollution. The main focus is on both cleaning up existing plastic pollution and slowing the flow of plastic pollution into waterways.

 

Trash in waterways influence the health of wildlife, people, and the economy. It is often mistaken as food by wildlife and entangles animals, both often resulting in death. Plastic also concentrates pollutants, therefore increasing the dosage when eaten. According to the Ocean Conservancy, 59 percent of sea birds, all sea turtle species, and 25 percent of fish sampled from seafood markets have had plastic found in them.

 

The Ocean Conservancy’s main efforts for combatting plastic in waterways are ICC, researching and sharing information about ocean trash, and working to prevent trash from entering waterways. They have a number of pledges available online relating to not using plastic, including the popular “Skip the Straw.”

 

Some of the most common items found this year at the mouth of Four-Mile Creek were styrofoam pieces, cigarette butts, and bottles. Strange finds included two shopping carts, chemistry goggles, and several shoes. There were 240 pounds of garbage collected from the beach and 100 pounds was collected in the gorge. Participants expressed that they were surprised at the amount of styrofoam and at the lack of plastic bags.

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In 2016, cigarette butts were by far the most common trash item found in Erie, according to GoErie, at 19,171. Food wrappers came in second at 7,357 and 6,462 plastic pieces were collected.

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In 2017, the Ocean Conservancy reported that the top 10 items collected globally were cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic beverage bottles, plastic bottle caps, other plastic bags, straws and stirrers, plastic take out containers, plastic lids, and foam take out containers. The top 10 items collected in the U.S. were cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic bottle caps

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“If we weren’t...here today, that garbage would have probably been sitting there next week and next year,” said Anthony Wlodarczyk, student of the class of 2022 and hopeful mechanical engineering major. “People, participate. Get involved with this.” Wlodarczyk said his motivation for volunteering was to help the community and clean up trash. He learned about the event through his Civic and Community Engagement class.

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Volunteer opportunities on campus are abundant throughout the school year. More information can be found on BehrendSync and more directly through Civic and Community Engagement, Reality Check, and Greener Behrend.