WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – The beach is a hot spot for celebrating the Fourth of July, but often trash is left behind polluting the environment.
Two local organizations are working to clean up the trash and ensure beaches are beautiful for years to come.
Masonboro.org is a volunteer-led group that cleans up trash on Masonboro Island during and after the Fourth of July celebrations. In years past, Masonboro Island was notorious for being filled with trash the day after the Fourth of July.
People often arrived on the island to celebrate but were left with no places to throw out trash. According to Jack Kilbourne, co-founder of Masonboro.org, the trash got so bad at one point the state threatened to close access to Masonboro Island.
Kilbourne says that is when Masonboro.org was formed, and the group now brings trash cans and bags to the island and hands them out to people as they enjoy the area.
“Our solution was to be here during the party,” said Kilbourne. “Since we’ve been here there’s not been a piece of trash leftover after the Fourth of July celebration,” he added.
Kilbourne lives in the area and wants to see it well taken care of and remain open.
“Those of us that live here, we come out here on a Tuesday afternoon with our family and our dog and we swim and we enjoy the sunsets. And this is a treasure for us, Masonboro Island, we just don’t want anything to threaten our access to it and we want it to look like it does today 100 years from now. It’s absolutely beautiful out here,” he added.
Over on Carolina Beach, Keep New Hanover Beautiful brought the BeBot out for the morning after the Fourth of July.
The BeBot is a remote-controlled beach sweeping robot that sifts through the sand and finds pieces of trash that are have been buried under the sand.
The BeBot holds the trash until emptied, then the Keep New Hanover Beautiful staff sort through the sand and trash throwing out items and small plastics that do not belong on the beach.
Keep New Hanover Beautiful works with the Pleasure Island Sea Turtle Project to ensure no sea turtle nests are disturbed while the robot works.
“Everyone wants a clean beach obviously, but a lot of the things we collect look a lot like food to our wildlife, so these things ending up in the waterway or in the beaches is a huge issue for some our more local residents,” said Veda Lewin, vice chairperson for Keep New Hanover Beautiful.
The BeBot will run on Carolina Beach and Wrightsville Beach after major holidays with the end goal of preventing litter from ending up in waterways.
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