June 15, 2024, by Mara Evans

At the end of this May, over twenty people of varying backgrounds found themselves working with each other on an almost entirely uninhabited island in Southeast Alaska. Members of the group hailed from across the country, and for some it was their very first time visiting Alaska. So why were they all gathered here, on this remote, rainy beach? The answer is marine debris: trash that evades proper disposal and finds its way into the ocean, whether it be from careless littering or inadequate dumping systems. This waste is often washed ashore and accumulates among the driftwood and rocks to the point where intervention is necessary. Unfortunately this happens frequently, so various organizations like the Marine Debris Foundation have formed to help address the problem.

The Marine Debris Foundation (MDF), working closely with NOAA’s marine debris program and with support from Ocean Conservancy and SSSC, hosted a beach cleanup at Biorka Island on May 29th. Attendees traveled to Sitka from all over the U.S. and held a variety of connections to the effort: some were employees of the Alaskan senator who had a hand in the founding of MDF; some were board members of the involved organizations with expertise in the field; some were Sitkan locals with countless cleanups under their belts. Both the executive director of MDF, Susan Sherman, and the marine debris program director at NOAA, Nancy Wallace, were instrumental in bringing everyone together and attended the Biorka beach cleanup as well. 

I was also in attendance, as the communications intern this summer at SSSC. The event began quietly, with everyone gathering early in the morning at Crescent Harbor to prepare to board the boat, but it didn’t stay that way. After boarding, everyone introduced themselves, starting conversations and making connections. The variety of occupations and backgrounds among those involved was no obstacle; quite the opposite. The gathering served a purpose beyond simply cleanup: it was a unique opportunity for all the participants to gain new insight on the issue everyone came together to tackle. 

It was my first beach cleanup— where I’m from, the ocean is hours away, and we pick up around parks and lakes instead. I quickly discovered that gathering trash on a beach is quite different from picking it up off of grass and dirt. There were massive tangles of driftwood on the sand that concealed much of the problem, but once approached, the marine debris strewn among the logs came into focus. The variety of objects discovered and disposed of included flip-flops, plastic gallon jugs, and even an oil barrel, but more than anything else people found fishing supplies, ropes, nets, and buoys.

One scene in particular from the cleanup sticks out in my mind— something that happened after we hauled all the trash to the docks and still had time before our scheduled boat launch. A handful of us chose to break off and continue cleaning on a different beach nearby, and one person found a foam buoy buried in the sand. She got to work at freeing it, and seeing her efforts, two more people joined in. Together the three managed to remove almost all the sand around the object, but it was still impossible to pick up.

 

More attempts ensued, including clearing even more of the sand, wedging a plank under the buoy, and jumping on the other end. Still nothing. At this point, their efforts were attracting a bit of a crowd, with at least a half dozen other people standing around and watching with bated breath. Finally someone exclaimed that it must still be tethered underground with something that wasn’t visible yet, someone else offered a knife to saw underneath the buoy, and they made one last attempt.

It worked! The buoy loosened after the first cut to reveal yellow rope attached at the bottom that was easily sawed through, and then the buoy was lifted up triumphantly to the cheers and claps of all who’d been watching. Everyone was grinning ear to ear, and even though it was just one of many pieces of trash retrieved, that foam buoy felt like a tangible representation of the impact we’d made that day.

Trawling an area for trash and carting over eight hundred pounds of debris across an island isn’t easy, but many hands made light work, and with the tiredness from a good day’s work also comes a sense of accomplishment. I hope that for me and other participants new to the effort, this beach cleanup was just the first of many.