Football, bra, wine bottles — all trash found on Coligny Beach Saturday

A team of volunteers gathered at Coligny Beach Saturday with one task in mind — Clean up the beach.

And as the trash bags grew heavy with beach toys, clothing, bottles, plastic bags, straws and forks they remembered they worked to educate beach-goers on the importance of the environment.

Mike Wagner, operations manager for Hilton Head Island Beach Shore Services, said the amount of trash coming from the beaches has increased significantly in the past ten years.

Between the island’s beaches six 8-yard wide dumpsters of trash are filled daily, Wagner said. Another six recycling dumpsters fill up once a week along with two 30-yard dumpsters.

Beachgoers are typically good at getting their trash to bins located at beach access points, Wagner said. Yet, staff still spends several hours in the morning driving up and down the beach cleaning up.

About 100 pounds of trash were picked up by Outside Foundation, the organization holding the cleanup Saturday, said Jean Fruh, executive director for the group.

“We thought this would be the best way to give our beautiful beach a great big hug,” Fruh said.

It is important to preserve the beaches not only to protect the local economy but the wildlife, Fruh said.

“We are a world class beach resort community,” Fruh said. “We need to be world class winners of protecting our environment.”

Items such as kites, which the volunteers found multiple of, can entangle birds, Fruh said. Plastic trash is often eaten by sea turtles and other ocean life causing harm she said.

This story was originally published July 8, 2017 at 7:47 PM with the headline "Football, bra, wine bottles — all trash found on Coligny Beach Saturday."