Volunteers rid 110 lbs. of trash from New Haven coastal area

One of the 17 volunteers at the Aug. 12 cleanup heads into the Long Wharf Nature Preserve to pick up trash.

Story and photos by Judy Benson

Jillian Corcoran, right, and her mother Molly Corcoran, of Milford, found spent the morning of Aug. 12 at the cleanup to help fill Jillian's service project requirement at Lauralton Hall school, where she is a freshman. — Jillian Corcoran, right, and her mother Molly Corcoran, of Milford, found spent the morning of Aug. 12 at the cleanup to help fill Jillian’s service project requirement at Lauralton Hall school, where she is a freshman.

New Haven – Lisanne Winslow extended her trash grabber into a thicket of tall reeds to extract a partially concealed plastic soda bottle.

“This one has been in the environment for a while,” said Winslow, an East Haven resident. “Look how it’s all wrapped in seaweed.”

She looked into her bucket, nearly full of empty chip bags, candy wrappers and crushed drink bottles a half hour after the cleanup began.

“This is all consumer waste,” she said. “People just throw trash out the window, and if we don’t pick it up it’s just going to get in the water and hurt the animals and then it hurts us. People don’t realize.”

Winslow was one of 17 volunteers who helped rid a popular coastal walkway and adjoining nature preserve of as much trash as they could collect in two hours on a sunny morning on Aug. 12. The area of Long Wharf Drive and the Long Wharf Nature Preserve in New Haven, much of it visible from I-95, was the location for the cleanup kicking off the 2023 #DontTrashLISound campaign led by Connecticut Sea Grant and the 2023 Connecticut Cleanup season led by Save the Sound. The two organizations partnered on the cleanup, which netted 12 bags with more than 110 pounds of trash. Two other organizations, Connecticut Clean Communities and Garbo Grabber, a company that makes trash pickup equipment, cleaned an adjoining section of Long Wharf Drive that morning, filling nine bags.

“Save the Sound was pleased to partner with Connecticut Sea Grant to kick off our 2023 Connecticut Cleanup season,” said Annalisa Paltauf, ecological restoration assistant and volunteer coordinator for Save the Sound. “Volunteers picked up more than 110 pounds of trash at Long Wharf, despite having a cleanup at the same location one week prior. Undoubtedly coastal cleanups are much needed.”

The cleanup launched the seventh annual #DontTrashLISound campaign of cleanups, social media posts and giveaways of popular “Protect Our Wildlife” stickers for reusable water bottles and travel mugs by Connecticut Sea Grant. The 2023 theme, “Love the coast—pitch the plastic” calls attention to the prevalence of plastic trash in the environment and encourages people to reduce single-use plastics by choosing reusable items instead, and making sure trash is disposed of properly.

The campaign will continue through International Coastal Cleanup Day on Sept. 16. It is one of several actions being taken by the Connecticut and New York Sea Grant programs and their partners to implement the Long Island Sound Marine Debris Action Plan since its completion in 2022.

“Food wrappers and beverage containers are easier to see and pick up, but when you look closely, you see more and more small bits of plastic that are, sadly, ubiquitous,” said Nancy Balcom, associate director for Connecticut Sea Grant. “We need to shift away from our reliance on plastic and use non-plastic alternatives whenever possible, as well as properly dispose of all trash so cleanups like these are no longer needed.”

The tally of trash collected during the cleanup tracked with what’s been found in cleanups across the Sound. Cigarette butts, which contain plastic along with harmful chemicals, are the most numerous item, followed by plastic food wrappers and other plastic items, such as bottles and bottle caps, utensils and straws. At the Long Wharf cleanup, volunteers picked up 506 cigarette butts and 331 food wrappers along with a few unusual finds—including a swath of carpet padding, a shovel handle, a wig and a screwdriver.

While the odd items attracted notice, the overwhelming presence of cigarette butts and plastic of all kinds was more significant to volunteers like the Karam family of Milford.

“It’s all just a bunch of plastic,” said Noreen Karam, 21, a student at Virginia Tech, looking into her bucket as her 18-year-old brother Eliott marked an item on the tally sheet.

“And we have a lot of cigarette butts,” said their mother, Evelyn. “We have like 27 so far.”

Volunteers will have many more opportunities to demonstrate how to “Love the coast—pitch the plastic” in cleanups planned into the fall, Paltauf noted.

“Volunteer efforts like this help prevent trash and plastics from entering our sensitive waters and we look forward to more cleanups this fall,” she said. “Anyone interested in volunteering for a cleanup can register here.”