Long Island Sound Study’s Halloween Coastal Clean a Spooky Success

More than 20 local volunteers of all ages joined together on the morning of Saturday, October 26, to collect trash from the sands of West Meadow Beach in Setauket, NY, as part of the third annual Halloween Coastal Clean.

Adam Charboneau, left, and daughter Leah, both of Port Jefferson, NY, pick up debris at West Meadow Park while attending the 2024 Halloween Coastal Clean on Oct. 26. Charboneau, an environmental historian and lecturer in SBU's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, and 7-year-old Leah joined the cleanup dressed as Shaggy and Scooby-Doo.

As part of the event, organized by New York Sea Grant (NYSG) and the Long Island Sound Study (LISS), children and families from surrounding areas were encouraged to sport costumes to celebrate the season. The event was part of the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup, which aims to clean coastal environments and document the varieties of trash being collected in beaches across the world.

Participants were asked to count how many pieces of glass, wood, paper, and plastic they picked up, with an emphasis on microplastics, and ultimately collected 13 buckets of debris over the course of the two-hour event, in addition to large items such as part of a shopping cart.

Along with LISS and NYSG, partners for the event included the Nature Initiative at the Avalon Nature Preserve, the Friends of Flax Pond, and the Town of Brookhaven.

For more on the topic of marine debris, see $5.2+M Awarded to NY Sea Grant to Address Marine Debrisorvisit nyseagrant.org/marinedebris.

Long Island Sound Study is an estuary program focused on the conservation, restoration and protection of Long Island Sound and its surrounding habitats. The program is currently wrapping up the revision of its Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan, which will guide conservation across the Sound region in New York and Connecticut for the next decade. Residents interested in giving input on this draft can send their comments toLISstudy.net/planby November 22.

New York Sea Grant, a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York, is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Sea Grant College Program.

- Rose Weldon, NYSG

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.