Followup: Protecting West Seattle shores, one bag at a time

| Environment | West Seattle beaches | West Seattle news

After reading the WSB followup Sunday on Neal Chism, who patrols for trash/debris part of the Duwamish shore near the West Seattle Bridge, Jen shared the photo above, explaining:

This photo shows the garbage (including a syringe/needle) picked up (Sunday) afternoon along a short stretch of West Seattle beach, a couple miles south of the Fauntleroy dock. All of this was picked up in the space of about 350 feet of shoreline. The recent super high tides seem to be bringing lots of trash. Imagine how much trash would be collected off local beaches, if all of us who walk the shoreline picked up the garbage as we walked…

I’ll be taking a bigger trash bag with me (today).

If you have the chance to get out on the beach today – the lowest daytime tide is at 12:34 pm (here’s the monthly chart).

Daren February 1, 2010 (10:15 am)

What’s the best way to toss biohazard items (needles, etc.) when found? Man that is horrible…

coffee February 1, 2010 (10:30 am)

I think you could take needles to a doctors office, they have those box things in their offices. Also, get a pair of heavy duty puncture proof gloves at a hardware store! Protect your hands. I know Home Depot and McClendons have them. They cost about 8.00 a pair.

Daren February 1, 2010 (10:50 am)

Don’t forget about “The Claw”; which makes it easier to grab that hard-to-reach stuff.

sgs February 1, 2010 (12:05 pm)

Yeah, we were at Cannon Beach over the weekend and were surprised by the number of small bits of broken plastic carried in by the waves. They would need to be “swept” up there were so many and scattered all around. Sorry for the animals that ingest them. Whenever traveling, I have decided to bring home all of my recyclables.

John February 1, 2010 (1:41 pm)

Thanks for cleaning up the beach. When Coleman pool opens each summer I walk the sand between the pool and Lowman Beach(sp). I typically pick up a dozen items each day. When I forget a bag I’ll throw the garbage on the gravel walking path which I’ll grab and throw away when I leave the pool to return home. That’s the sad part. I can throw plastic bottles on the waterfront gravel trail and they’ll still be there 90 minutes later when I walk home. There would be a 100 people walking by it and not a single person will pick it up, even knowing the end of the path has a garbage can. We are a lazy group of people in West Seattle.

mark February 1, 2010 (2:13 pm)

You can actually get rid of “sharps” (needles etc) for free at the city run dump sites. I think they might limit what you can dump to one container, not sure the size, per day. I know I have seen the collection at the South Park site

Neal Chism February 1, 2010 (4:46 pm)

Jen

Your getting a better quality trash over on your side than I am…

My suggestion to you is to get an “Unger” 36 inch “grabby tool” and a 5 gallon egg bucket kit for your car. These are available at a McLendons for 20 bucks. Then carry a few plastic yard bags along in your pocket. This is a good simple system, and after about two weeks you will get good at using the grabby tool, and it will become another powerful weapon against marine debris. The graduation test is if you can pick up a cig. butt while walking at a normal pace, and you don’t notice you did it!

When I get totally disgusted by the amount and continual flow of this stuff, I remember three things;

1) You are out there for the wildlife. What you pick up, they won’t eat.

2) I think of it more as a little “treasure hunt” every day.

3) If you really get depressed about the trash go to a weblink called, Missouri River Relief.

http://www.riverrelief.org/about/

These folks deal with 750 MILES of river, and that only gets you as far as the St. Louis area! Stunning numbers of trash they recover.

Thanks for picking the stuff up, go slow, and be careful. (Also, if you leave trash bags full of stuff by the garbage cans, the city will usually haul it.)

Neal Chism
Duwamish Trash Picker Upper Guy

Jen February 2, 2010 (4:10 pm)

Thanks for the great tips everyone. Thanks especially to Neal aka Duwamish Trash Picker Upper Guy for the advice, inspiration and your hard work!

Today the beach seemed to be scoured clean by the high tide. I only picked up one big bucket full of glass, cans and the ubiquitous styrofoam. I imagine a lot of the trash I saw on Sunday was pulled by the tide and deposited on another beach somewhere.

Chris Wilke February 2, 2010 (6:17 pm)

Jen and others
Thanks for your efforts to keep our beaches clean. If you want, we would love it if you could provide Puget Soundkeeper Alliance with regular reports of your efforts.

We have a year long marine debris campaign that is already picking up steam. Please contact me if you are interested. We are finding that this is contagious!

Speaking of contagious if you are encountering sharps on the beach you should get a sharps container. These are small, rigid, usually red boxes, marked biohazard. As others have said you should aways protect yourself against possible skin punctures! And always dispose of the waste properly. Call the County Haz Waste line at 206-296-4692 for disposal information.

Unfortunately the online link is not working at the moment.

Also see the following site for personal protection http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/ehs/toxic/biomedical.aspx

Chris Wilke
Puget Soundkeeper Alliance
206-297-7002
chris@pugetsoundkeeper.org

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