Coastal Clean Up Effort a Success

Bottles, bits of plastic, and a discarded lawn chair were among items pulled from Whalebone Bay and Mullet Bay during the annual Ocean Conservancy international coastal clean up on September 16, sponsored locally by Ernst and Young in partnership with Keep Bermuda Beautiful.

Volunteers from BIOS spent the morning scouring beaches, parks and coastlines, snorkeling in shallow waters, and diving with tanks to remove marine debris, as well as to document the types and quantities of materials collected. In three hours, volunteers gathered more than a dozen bags of trash and additional bags of recyclable aluminum and glass.

BIOS volunteers have been involved with the event for at least eight of the past 30 years. This year’s participants included fall semester students and teaching assistants, participants with the BIOS Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, interns, and staff members.

Group photo by Pamela Amaral; all other photos by Chloe Baron.