Volunteers of all ages joined Friends of Palm Beach on an early weekend morning to celebrate the Great American Cleanup by picking up 78 pounds of litter from the island’s coast.
An annual collaborative event between the Friends of Palm Beach and Keep Palm Beach County Beautiful, the April 25 beach cleanup was among the hundreds of litter cleaning events that occurred across the nation as part of the community improvement program created by the nonprofit Keep America Beautiful.
“It covers parks, waterways, beaches” and any other natural area in need of a cleanup, said Diane Buhler, founder of Friends of Palm Beach.
The beach cleanup at 1576 S Ocean Blvd. Was just one of the 19 cleanup projects in Palm Beach County scheduled for that day. Events included cleans ups at the Lantana Municipal Beach, John D. MacArthur Beach State Park and Riviera Beach’s Phil Foster Park.
During the beach clean up, each volunteer was given a commemorative T-shirt, a bucket and grabber tool to safely pick up and collect the trash that drifted onto the beach.
A 50-gallon plastic drum, pieces of driftwood, and countless pieces of broken-down plastic were among the items taken off the beach by volunteers during the morning event.
Attendees included a few students from St. Ann Catholic School and their families, as well as Shore Protection Board member Lawrence Kaplan.
Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Volunteers collect 78 pounds of trash at Friends of Palm Beach event
Reporting by Diego Diaz Lasa, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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