Sands FTE R 



By Sarah Friday 



Photo by Scott Taylor 



Soda cans and trash pile up on Shackleford Banks 



Bruce Smith isn't gifted with extra- 

 sensory perception. 



And he doesn't have a degree in 

 sociology. 



But the New York native can tell you 

 more about East Coast beachgoers 

 than anyone — without ever seeing 

 them. 



Smith cleans beaches for a living. 



As the owner of Sandsifter, a beach 

 maintenance operation based in Sea 

 Cliff, N.Y., he's traveled from New 

 Orleans to Portsmouth, Maine, in 

 search of debris. 



On the way he's found plenty of 

 trash — plastic bags, light bulbs, candy 

 wrappers, beer cans. You name it. 



But he's also discovered that what he 

 finds in the sand often tells a story and 

 that it's easy to identify the cast of 

 characters. 



Smith sees North Carolina beach- 

 goers as frequent smokers and soda 

 drinkers. 



In Florida, industry plays a larger 

 part. 



New Yorkers are picnickers, he says. 

 Plenty of plastic forks, spoons, knives, 

 plates, beer cans, empty soda bottles 

 and Styrofoam cups give it away. 



"Everybody there loves the beach," 

 Smith says. But trash is just "one of 

 those things nobody thinks about." 



On any given summer day at Jones 

 Park Beach on Long Island, tourists 

 create 4,000 cubic yards of debris. 

 That's the most in the world. 



But Smith is the first to admit that 

 the problem on the coast is worse than 

 a few discarded fast food bags. 



Oil sludge and ocean dumping leave 

 tons of grease and gunk lying on the 

 beaches. Eight and a half million 

 pounds per year to be exact. 



Tighter oil sludge restrictions in 

 New York have cleaned up that prob- 

 lem, he says. But no laws prohibit 

 dumping offshore. 



In his five years of business. Smith 

 has seen debris take its toll on wildlife. 

 He's found the decomposed carcasses 

 of fish, sharks and seagulls. But the 

 most striking changes he's seen were in 

 the New York area. Where he once saw 

 one dead gull a month in the harbor, 

 now he sees one almost daily. 



Florida faces the same problems. 



Sludge, tourists, industrialization 

 and shipping pile debris higher and 

 higher, making the Sunshine State's 

 beaches the dirtiest on the East Coast 

 according to Smith. 



"It's not that people in Florida are 

 dirtier than New Yorkers; it's just that 

 the prevailing weather patterns make 

 it more of a problem," he adds. 



Debris from the mainland collects in 

 the canals and waterways and rushes 

 to the ocean. Then, the Gulf Stream 

 currents and winds from the east push 

 the floating waste mixed with seaweed 

 back onshore. 



Smith attributes most of Florida's 

 problem not to tourists, but to freight- 

 ers offshore. 



Food, boxes and trash often break 

 loose from the ships or are thrown 

 overboard. In one story Smith heard, 

 300 tons of frozen chickens slid into the 

 sea. 



In North Carolina, Smith has seen 

 plenty of plastic plates, spoons and 

 jugs — the kind orange drink comes in 

 at the quick-stop shops. 



But one of the biggest contributors 

 to litter in North and South Carolina is 

 cigarette butts. He's found so many in 

 his harvester-like sandsifter that he's 

 renamed the beaches "The World's 

 Largest Ashtray." 



"The biggest problem I see in North 

 Carolina is the beaches tend to be 

 rather narrow," he says. This creates 

 two problems for beach cleaning. 



The density of people and trash 

 increases when the beach isn't very 

 wide. And since the beaches are small, 

 the sand tends to compact and is hard 

 to sift. 



Still, Smith ranks North Carolina's 

 beaches as some of the cleanest he's 

 seen on the East Coast. 



