Big Sweep 2008

Saturday, September 27

 Event Time: 9:00 am

 Location:  Wrightsville Beach at Johnnie Mercer’s Pier, Carolina Beach at the Boardwalk Gazebo, Kure Beach at the Pier, and Greenfield Lake at the boathouse.   

Volunteers are needed!  

Refreshments will be provided and prizes will given for the most unusual item found and the most trash collected by an individual or group. Please come prepared to be outdoors and wear sturdy closed toe shoes and clothes that can get dirty.

Event Details

Wilmington, NC.  What happens to litter?  In a county surrounded by water like New Hanover, chances are good that it ends up in the ocean one way or another.  Once it’s in the ocean, it doesn’t just disappear.   Sharp objects cut feet, many items entangle or choke animals, but many items are washed out to sea where they break down into small pieces, putting toxic chemicals into our waters.  In the Pacific Ocean, an area twice the size of Texas contains a “plastic soup” where one study showed that trash outweighed plankton 6:1.   Other areas in the world’s oceans are suspected to have similar problems.   Litter doesn’t just go away when it’s out of sight and on Saturday, September 27, hundreds of volunteers throughout New Hanover County will gather for Big Sweep, an annual cleanup of our waterways.             

Big Sweep began as a beach sweep in 1987 and is now an annual statewide event.  Since its inception, more than 192,000 volunteers have retrieved over six million pounds of debris from North Carolina’s waterways.  The September 27^th event is part of the International Coastal Cleanup that involves approximately 90 countries and 55 states and territories. 

For more information, please call Keep America Beautiful of New Hanover County at 798-4404 for more information, or log on to www.ncbigsweep.org.

www.nhcgov.com