i e I d notes 



Sorting Through the Garbage 



The list could be an inventory of 

 the county landfill: tires and car parts, 

 a rusted gas can, a refrigerator, a stove, 

 a toilet bowl. 



Unfortunately, it's not. 



These items are just a sampling of 

 the more than 210 tons of 

 litter volunteers picked up 

 from North Carolina 

 waterways in last fall's First 

 Citizens Bank Big Sweep 

 '91. 



Enough trash, collected |l& 

 in the course of four hours, Hn 

 to fill a fleet of 21 garbage 

 trucks to capacity. 



Organizers say the bulk 

 of discarded appliances and 

 furniture was hauled off 



inland lakes and waterways, 

 where the cleanup hit full 



stride last year. There, 

 volunteers found an electric motor, 

 shopping carts, a mattress and car seat. 



But there's more to the annual 

 statewide cleanup than peculiar finds. 



Bottles and cans left behind are no 

 less of an eyesore. And plastic and 

 discarded fishing line are deadly to 

 aquatic wildlife that mistake them for 

 food or become entangled. 



It's this type of everyday garbage 

 that continues to hold rank in the 

 state's "dirty dozen," the 12 items 

 most cited in the cleanup. On the 

 coast, cigarette butts head the 1991 

 dirty dozen; inland, glass bottles. 



The volume of trash collected 

 statewide — 47 tons more than 1990 

 — is a rare measure of the hazards of 

 our throwaway society. 



But it's also a measure of the 

 North Carolina effort, which rivaled 

 cleanups in Texas, California and 

 Florida in participation and shoreline 

 miles scoured. 



Close to 12,500 volunteers 



scoured 400 miles of Tar Heel 

 shoreline, from the southern moun- 

 tains to the coastal plain to the 

 beaches. 



The inland and coastal cleanups 

 combined netted 420,000 pounds of 



litter, more than any other state. The 

 heavy appliances and car parts played 

 a role in driving up the reported 

 weight of North Carolina's garbage, 

 says Susan Bartholomew, First 

 Citizens Bank Big Sweep executive 

 director. 



The jump in inland participation 

 was also a factor. 



"When we have more tons of 

 garbage than anyone else, it's partly 

 because our cleanup covers more area 

 than just the beach," Bartholomew 

 says. 



Nationally, 129,900 volunteers 

 picked up nearly 2.9 million pounds 

 of trash from the shores of 3 1 states, 

 Washington, D.C., and two territories. 



In North Carolina, a profile of the 

 1991 statewide dirty dozen emerged 

 from inland and coastal statistics. 

 They were the items found most 

 along waterways and coastlines: 

 cigarettes, 95,057; glass drink bottles, 

 37,220; metal beverage cans, 31,905; 



plastic drink bottles, 29,91 1; plastic 

 food bags and wrappers, 23,053; 

 plastic foam pieces, 22,578; paper 

 pieces, 22,495; plastic pieces, 21,650; 

 plastic foam cups, 17,498; plastic caps 

 and lids, 14,984; glass pieces, 8,368; 

 and plastic straws, 7,686. 



The coastal and 

 inland data show North 

 Carolina volunteers gathered 

 enough glass bottles, based 

 apiaw* on a 10-ounce average 



weight, to more than fill an 

 1 8-foot moving van. 



They plucked enough 

 metal cans from the water 

 and shore to fill 737 grocery 

 bags. The energy waste is 

 equivalent to pouring out 

 nearly 1 ,500 gallons of 

 H gasoline. 



The plastic straws, 

 placed end to end, could stretch from 

 bow to stern of the USS North Caro- 

 lina more than 6 1/2 times. Cigarette 

 butts would cover more than two 

 miles. 



North Carolina led the nation in 

 efforts to expand the cleanup inland. 

 Data in these counties have been 

 collected for only two years and don't 

 yet provide enough information for 

 spotting trends. 



But individual inland cleanups 

 have been taking place for years, and 

 the illegal dumping is a long-standing 

 problem, says Janie Wilson, coordina- 

 tor for the Asheville/Buncombe 

 County Keep America Beautiful. 



"The attitude that it's OK to throw 

 trash over the back of the mountain 

 because nobody sees it is still in some 

 people's minds," says Wilson, a Big 

 Sweep coordinator. "I hear it's better 

 than it used to be, but we've still got a 

 long way to go." 



Jeannie Faris 



COASTWATCH 21 



