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Unwrap The Waves

Loggerhead Marinelife Center's Unwrap the Wave Initiative allows for students and community members to get into the "spirit" of conservation by collecting their candy wrappers from Halloween and recycling them.

Unwrap The Waves

Strange Trash Finds of 2019

January 5, 2020

With 2020 in full swing, LMC’s conservation department is counting down the top 9 strangest marine debris items removed during beach cleanups in 2019!

9. 1,771 Plastic Lollipop Sticks

Plastic lollipop sticks can be identified by the holes located on the side of the stick used to allow the lollipop candy to “stick” to the plastic material.

8. A Motorcycle Helmet

Did someone’s motorcycle break down on the beach?

7. 156 Glow Sticks

Glow sticks are sometimes used for fishing at night and occasionally break loose or are left on the beach.

6. A Lightsaber

Did Kylo Ren have a beach day and leave this behind?

5. A Radiosonde

This device is attached to a weather balloon used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to take upper-air observations like temperature, humidity, wind speeds, etc. Inside the radiosonde, there were directions on where to send it once found and the device was successfully returned to NOAA.  

4. A Baby Doll

Move over Chucky, there’s a new creepy doll in town.

3. A Broken Soccer Goal

Our “goal” is to keep the oceans clean and plastic-free!

2. Six Octopus Traps – from West Africa!

This “container,” is actually an octopus trap, and is a model used ONLY in West Africa. That means this piece of debris traveled over 4,000 miles of ocean to wash up on our shores. 

1. A Couch!

Coming in at the #1 strangest find of 2019 is a COUCH!!
Whether someone was couch-surfing on the beach or taking a nap in style in the sun, couches do not belong on the beach!

Thank you to all of the volunteers who came out to help us clean up the beach last year. Look for the total impact of all of our 2019 beach cleanups next week when we post our 2019 Sort Report!

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