Lessons learned during annual beach sweep in North Myrtle Beach - SCNow
Hundreds of people across the Grand Strand took to the beach Saturday to make it a cleaner place as part of the 23rd Annual National Beach Sweep Day.
For the past four years, R.J. Catanzaro and his family have helped the city of North Myrtle Beach make its waterways cleaner.
"If people don't clean it up, it's just going to get dirtier and dirtier," said Catanzaro, a seventh grader at North Myrtle Beach Middle School. "And then we can't go play in the water or do anything like that."
Catanzaro was just one of 150 people who volunteered their Saturday morning to pick up what others left behind near the creek and on the beach.
"We try to get as much garbage out of the marsh as we can," said volunteer Rob Kayton. "There's fishing lures, there's bait containers, Styrofoam cups. And all of this is harmful to the environment."
"We just try to make people more conscious of fastening their bags and stuff down before the wind picks it up and carries it away so the birds and fish don't try to eat it," said Eileen Schweda who also gave up her lazy day to set an example. She and her husband picked up six bags of trash between the two of them.
Saturday's weather kept part of the sweep from happening. Normally they launch kayaks into the marsh so that the workers can get up close to the trash in the marsh grass. They might not have been able to do all the cleaning they wanted to do Saturday, but they did spread a message. "We're trying to teach the kids recycling," said Kayton. "We're trying to teach them to pick up their own trash. If you don't throw it down, no body has to pick it up."
That's a rule 12-year-old Catanzaro and his little brother, Patrick, already live by.
"This is our home and we have to treat it nicely," said Catanzaro. "Even if some people might not treat it right, that doesn't mean we shouldn't."
Rob Kayton said even there were fewer volunteers this year, he anticipated the crews collected two dumpsters full of trash.
18 Sep, 2011--
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNG2WVIckHUQAF8gpI_O64LukZaOyg&url=http://www2.scnow.com/news/grand-strand/2011/sep/17/lessons-learned-during-annual-beach-sweep-north-my-ar-2424768/
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