Big Sweep to clean county this Saturday
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on September 28, 2015 1:46 PM
Volunteers will clean up litter at varying sites in Wayne County Saturday during the annual Big Sweep.
Big Sweep, a program where volunteers pick up trash and document what types of trash and where is was located, happens each year in the county, and this year's watershed cleanup will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 3.
Since 1987, Big Sweep was under the statewide umbrella of North Carolina Big Sweep, but this year the program was canceled due to lack of funding.
That makes no difference, however, because the local program is taking a different avenue through the International Coastal Cleanup under Ocean Conservatory.
"We're calling it the Wayne County Big Sweep," said local Big Sweep coordinator Barbara Byers. "We do watershed cleanups because trash that gets into the water can end up at the beach at some point. And it can endanger wildlife."
Cliffs of the Neuse State Park is a big area that volunteers clean each year, Ms. Byers said.
"A lot of our sites are done by Scouts, schools and 4-H'ers. Most of them have a place they clean each year."
Once a group signs up to do Big Sweep, its members receive plastic bags and gloves provided by the Department of Transportation and data cards to keep track of what they pick up, Ms. Byers said.
Last year in Wayne County, 209 volunteers cleaned more than 12 miles at 14 sites, collecting 60 bags of trash weighing 1,255 pounds.
"We have Girl Scouts who usually clean up behind the mall each year," Ms. Byers said. "Last year, they found a bed frame, a tent, a tarp and what they thought was a still.
"Volunteers at Cliffs of the Neuse found a hair weave and 25 glue sticks. At Eastern Wayne Elementary School, they found shingles, and somebody found empty cold medicine packets."
Ms. Byers said the number things found each year are cigarette butts, followed by food wrappers, plastic beverage bottles, plastic bottle caps, beverage stirrers and straws, plastic grocery bags, cans, cups and plates.
She said someone also found eight bowling balls during last year's Big Sweep.
No matter what kind of trash it is, it all hurts the wildlife and sea creatures.
"One time I went to a training and they showed us photos of trash once it gets out into the ocean," Ms. Byers said.
"Stuff floats in giant mounds out in the ocean. That's what happens when trash goes out into the ocean. It's like a landfill out in the ocean. Fish go up and try to eat that stuff because they think it's food.
"I've seen pictures of brown pelicans that had eaten trash, and it wasn't going through their digestive tract and they died. They starve to death. That is so sad."
She's also seen pictures of birds around a lake that had picked up cigarette butts there and lined their nests with the filters.
"The nicotine poisoned the eggs and they would never hatch," she said. "You just don't think about this stuff.
"When you throw out your plastic soda bottle onto the street, it can eventually end up killing sea life. You think it's just one bottle, it's just one bottle."
Anyone wanting to volunteer for this year's Big Sweep may call Ms. Byers at 919-731-1527 or email her at [email protected] by the end of September.