From Beachside Trash to Holiday Treasure

A vibrantly successful Long Island Sound shoreline cleanup takes an unconventional recycling twist through the efforts of eager Greenport School fourth graders and local artist Cindy Pease Roe 

On the morning of Tuesday, November 19^th, forty fourth graders and a handful of brave chaperones leapt off of a Greenport School bus and onto a gusty seashore at Truman’s Beach in Orient, NY. Using Rozalia Project’s marine debris record sheets, the students happily battled the beachside winds as they removed over 600 pieces of unnatural materials from one of their favorite summer spots. A sopping wet pillow and three dead rats in a plastic gallon jug later, the job was far from done. 

This second annual Greenport School beach cleanup was developed by local artist Cindy Pease Roe who has made her mark on the north fork of Long Island through all mediums of her creative genius within her studio that is tucked inside historic Hanff’s Boatyard in Greenport. Most recently, though, Roe has expanded her talent by transforming her personal collection of shoreline plastics into unique art forms. That is where the kids come in. 

When the data-filled clipboards were collected, and the heaping bags of marine debris gathered, the rubbish party reconfigured at Floyd Memorial Library for color sorting. As tables erupted with blue bottle caps, a yellow yo-yo, tarnished green rope and the like, the room buzzed with imaginative angst for what was to come. The students’ field trip continued the next morning when they joined Roe once again to craft holiday wreaths with their discovered, sorted and recorded materials. Afterward, these animated decorations were on display throughout Greenport School, decking the halls but also bringing awareness to a deeper truth. 

Of the nearly 650 pieces of recorded marine debris found, the most frequently occurring material was caps, lids and bottle tops, with 119 pieces recovered. In second was rope, coming in at 77 pieces, and third was plastic bottles, totaling 45. As most of Rozalia Project’s collected data has shown, our shores and waters are battling preventable pollutants. 40 fourth graders on Long Island shared these facts with their schoolmates and community through marine trash art; how will you encourage preventative action? 

This blog post is from 2013 intern, Kaleigh Wilson, a graduate of Roger Williams University. We asked Kaleigh to join Cindy and the Greenport students last fall to represent Rozalia Project and add an element of science and data collection to the excellent pickup and artwork that was already being done. We are grateful to Kaleigh for stepping up to participate and write this great report. In addition, Newsday Magazine published some articles about this event: 

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/li-life/rozalia-project-s-founder-seeks-help-for-waters-1.6542553

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/li-life/turning-beach-junk-cleanup-into-art-projects-1.6542224

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/greenport-students-make-wreaths-from-washed-up-plastic-1.6533763

Summer is coming... time to hear from our new interns!

Welcome to 2013! Like last year, we are very excited about and proud of our interns. They come to Rozalia Project from a variety of backgrounds, hometowns and colleges. They also come to us for a variety of reasons. This is the first in a series of twice weekly intern blog posts where our new interns will introduce themselves and tell us why they came to Rozalia Project. Check this blog every Monday and Thursday to meet a new intern as we get closer and closer to boarding American Promise and kicking off Mission Atlantic and Rozalia Project's cleanup, education and research this summer!

Our first intern in this series is Alyssa Lefebvre, a junior and Marine Biology major at the Florida Institute of Technology. Alyssa had a recent adventure SCUBA diving for trash as part of a Project Aware underwater cleanup!

If you are anything like me, it is likely that you are able to ramble out several ocean based facts such as, the oceans make up 71% of the Earth’s surface and contains 97% of the planet’s water, however roughly a 5% of these waters have been explored.  While I never was one for statistics, stats such as these catch my attention and tend to make me wonder.  If you are privileged to be SCUBA certified, (as I hope many of you get the chance to be one day) stop and think of all of the breathtaking places you have gone diving.  If you are more experienced, your list may go on and on.  But if you are somewhat new to the diving world, like am I, you may only be able to list a handful.  Regardless your number, realize that if at any point you think you have seen it all; remind yourself, with these percentages above, that you have come nowhere near seeing all that is out there.

My name is Alyssa Lefebvre, and I am thankful to be a part of the Rozalia Project’s 2013 internship crew.  I spent the first 18 years of my life living in Worcester, MA which is not far from Boston and the New England Aquarium.  Throughout my childhood, numerous trips to that aquarium were made and with each visit my passion for the oceans and its majestic creatures, grew.  For the past 3 years I have attended Florida Institute of Technology as I am pursuing a degree in Marine Biology.  Growing up in the north, the moment I moved to Florida it truly seemed like paradise.  I couldn’t (and still can’t) stop staring at all of the birds, the palm trees, the fish.  And the trash.

With beaches being mere miles away from my institution, I hate to admit to my parents that some days more of my time is spent on the beaches than in class.  However, the time I spend on the beach, I look for any obvious debris caught in the dunes or that have washed onshore.  Initially the large amounts of solo cups and McDonald’s wrappers astonished and disgusted me.  I had to remind myself that not everyone cares as much as some of us do.  I began picking up pieces of trash as I walked back to my car and quickly noticed that people saw what I was doing.  Many would approach me and commend my actions.  It was one day in particular, I turned around only to see a friend of mine picking up a piece of trash several steps out of our path, and glancing back at me with a smile.  At that moment I realized every person’s actions do matter.

As a member of the SCUBA club on campus, I help organize dives and take suggestions from fellow divers.  Dive Against Debris is a cleanup project organized by Project Aware which began in 1993.  They focus not only on having divers remove any pervasive debris that contaminates the reefs and sandy bottoms below, but they also require information that describes the underwater perspective to the problem and helps document underwater impacts of marine debris.  In February, I was able to participate in my first ever Dive Against Debris, and that led me to reach out to the Rozalia Project in hopes of being a part of their team.

Tires, golf balls, plastic bags and silverware all littered the reefs off the coast of Pompano, FL the day of our dive.  The group of us worked collectively to pick up the junk that had not yet become filled with marine invertebrates.  We piled the junk into our mesh bags which quickly became weighed down.  Not only did the vast amount of garbage fill me with the disgust and desire to never litter into the oceans, but also the amount of work it took to drag the heavy tires up to the surface from 40 feet below, helped me decide that no one should ever have to work this hard to keep our earth clean.

The Rozalia Project advocates that any action a person takes to help the ocean and the environment is important, and after getting the chance to see it and help clean it first hand, I fully supported it and wished to be a part of it.  No matter how big or how small, I want to help spread the idea that every action you partake in, truly does matter.  Let’s make actions as contagious as smiles.

Many Hands Make Light Work

This summer, Rozalia Project learned that the people we work with make our organization as great as it is.  The interns that joined us this summer took our breath away with their perseverance, integrity, creativity, and professionalism.   In every location we visited, our partners commented on the high quality of the Rozalia Project interns.  We would not have been able to pick up over 40,000 pieces of debris (nor count or sort them) without the tireless efforts of our interns. 

Other than just their hard work, the interns made this summer fun, upbeat, and a truly memorable experience.  From dancing in immersion suits (viewable here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMF7LeK_L5w&list=UUyGuOwTKG35ofRdtruO-qHw&index=2&feature=plcp to jokes around the dinner table to squeals of excitement over interesting sea creatures, we were never short on laughs or good times. 

Happily, the interns felt the same.  Please read on to see what the interns had to say when reflecting upon their time with Rozalia Project this summer: 

“Entering the Rozalia Project late in the summer, I was both excited and anxious. I wondered if the crew would be intimidating, or the tasks overwhelming. I knew virtually nothing about sailing! Instead, I was warmly welcomed by the crew, and indeed, did jump right into work! My responsibilities, although new, were interesting and fun, and I never felt overwhelmed. After the first week in New York, I felt comfortable with caring for and driving the ROV and was ready to learn everything I could about sailing while on American Promise. Rachael, Rebecca and all the crew were so patient and helpful, I tackled sailing in no time! It’s an exhilarating experience, which I’m sure I will continue as a hobby. Another activity I’m sure I will never stop doing, is picking up debris! Just the other day, I found myself collecting a Styrofoam packing peanut off the ground and whispering under my breath: “Shipping material” as if another intern was beside me, keeping tally on a Rozalia Project data sheet. As an action/science intern, I feel that I walked away with skills that will allow me to reach my career goals, and experiences and friends that I will never forget. During our last day on American Promise, as we headed back to Kittery, Maine with no wind to sail, our spirits were lifted as we encountered a marine mammal extravaganza of a lifetime! We had Minke whales breach close enough to look us in the eye, and numerous dolphins and seals gliding past the boat just feet away from us. It was an amazing end to an equally amazing internship.”  – Sarah Kollar

“There is much about the Rozalia Project that defies characterization. It is tempting to call the work that I did for Rozalia an internship, but it was really a lot more than that. While I was on board the American Promise, I was learning, living, adjusting, and growing in ways that cannot be triggered by a simple internship. Similarly, it is tempting to describe Rozalia as a conservation group, but they are actually something more complex. I had the pleasure of being surrounded by new places, new people, new wildlife, and new ideas for the duration of my time with the project. I learned how to work and live in tight quarters with a group of people I barely know, I learned to look at the ocean and the world in a more critical way, and, perhaps most importantly, I realized the importance of safeguarding the world’s ocean. Thanks so much!” –Conor Grant

“Things I Learned With the Rozalia Project

·      Reprovisioning isn’t just a necessity, it’s a skill.  Feeding eight people, anticipating the week’s meals, making sure it will all fit in the reefer, AND that everyone’s Wheat Thins needs are met isn’t for the faint of heart.  That being said, no matter how often you’ve been, how much you’ve planned out your trip, or how quickly you need to be done, reprovisioning WILL take three hours, Sam’s Club WILL be overwhelming, and you WILL get at least seven bags of Veggie Sticks.

·      You have to be a jack-of-all-trades to start and run a non-profit. The number and range of challenges that Rachael and James, and consequently all the crew, face each day can, indeed, be daunting.  Today, the sump pump stopped working. Tomorrow we have to go to Staples and make six posters for a booth. Wednesday, you’re on dinner and have to walk the dogs. 

·      Networking is key.  The only way the Rozalia Project (or any non-profit, or any company, or any person) can grow and progress in the world is to network.  Even what seems to be an insignificant meeting could pan out to be something big.  And if it doesn’t, it’s always nice to have 10 more people in the world telling their friends about the Rozalia Project. 

·      Real science takes time and often doesn’t work.  Sometimes you have a great idea and get really excited about testing it and think it’s going to work as soon as you throw it in the water.  When the Basker took its first plunge, however, this clearly wasn’t the case.  Although it takes a while, the tweaking, testing, and perfecting can be extremely satisfying. You may even have to get hoisted along the spinnaker pole to make it happen.

·      There is trash in the ocean.  A lot. Most of it is small, hard to see by the casual passerby, and easily consumed by animals.  Even extremely remote locations such as Frenchboro, ME can have their pristine coastlines ruined by rusty traps, lobster bands made in Canada, and colorful bits of microfiber. 

·      Trash hunting is addicting.  What cleaning up trash lacks in glamour, it certainly makes up for in fun.  Amidst the scenery of the open ocean or the rocky beaches of Maine, who wouldn’t enjoy bending over and picking up other people’s litter?! Once you start you literally can’t stop (especially Kyle!). I was overcome with pride and respect for our team during the first day of the Frenchboro beach clean-up. Despite incessant rain the eight of us went to work without a single complaint.  We literally had to drag ourselves away from the beach, and THAT is awesome.

·      We can predict where high densities of trash will be and find it!  One of the more exciting discoveries during my month on the AP was that trash accumulates along “tide lines” where two bodies of water either from different currents or of different temperatures converged to form mats of sticks and seaweed.  Our first “tideline” tow collected 384 pieces of plastic!  The large lines we passed on the sail to Frenchboro had bottles, cans and buckets floating on them.  If we can find these convergence zones and tidelines, we can get even more garbage out of the ocean.

·      Red Solo Cups sink.  They may be great for parties, but these little devils shoot straight to the bottom.  It proves that everything we drop into the water, everything we lazily leave on the dock to get blown into the ocean, everything we throw on the ground to get swept out with the rain WILL sink.  While it may be out of sight, out of mind, it still poses problems for our aquatic friends.  Without the ROV, how would we know they were even there?!

·      There is hope for the world.  We can clean up the trash!  We can use plastics responsibly! We can recycle and properly dispose of our garbage! And the beauty of it all is that children understand this!  After watching groups of kids run enthusiastically between the ROV in the Fort Adams basin and the Rozalia Project tent on shore, gnarly-looking PVC pipe held triumphantly overhead, I believe that a change will happen.  These kids know that we cannot have trash in the ocean. They know the importance of reducing, reusing, and recycling.  They know that their individual actions will make a difference.  This is what can and will solve the world’s problems, and I am proud to have been a part of it.”  –Blais Hickey

“During my internship I managed to fall overboard while at a dock, destroy my phone, tell my mom the wrong day to pick me up and then drop her keys into the ocean!   It was by far the most enjoyable internship ever! From sailing for the first time, to waving at seals, to picking up trash on far away islands there was no experience quite like it.  Even though things may have not gone perfectly, I realized there’s nothing more valuable then packing up and trying something new.  All the crazy things that will happen along the way just might surprise you.”  –Andrew Randazzo

“So often we, being The Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, are described as the people who pick up trash.  And yes, this is true; we pick up a lot of trash, but we also do so much more than that.  This summer, as part of the Rozalia Project team, I learned that cleaning the oceans begins with the removal of one piece of marine debris.   While this seems like a basic concept, if you really think about it if every person in the world picked up one piece of trash a day (either from land or the water – all trash on land will become trash in the water), the world would already have over 7 billion less pieces of garbage littering the surface daily.  If we each picked up more than one, imagine what we could do.  As a science/action intern I spent a large portion of my time working on data sheets, organizing what Rozalia Project and our partners pick up.  Analyzing these numbers made me realize how much we can really do about this issue.  There was one day where Marina and I spent about 2 hours cleaning 2 or 3 blocks in Providence, RI and with just the two of us in this short period of time, we collected close to 900 pieces of garbage.  Everyone knows that marine debris exists, but working with Rozalia Project taught me that awareness is not the only thing we need.  What we, as a population need, is the inspiration to pick up that wrapper or piece of paper and toss it in a garbage can or a recycling bin.  With Rozalia Project, I feel that not only do I now have the will to eliminate marine debris, but I feel that I have also inspired others to do the same.” –Laura Migliaccio

Thanks again for an amazing experience!!! I thought I would share some things I learned and journaled while on American Promise:

1. Don't be afraid to ask questions. If you're learning something new, take advantage of the  

    opportunity.

2. Keep a positive mindset and positivity will follow.

3. Remember the big picture. All small things and actions are 

    leading you there.

4. Be spontaneous even if it's scary.

5. Don't loose hope in mankind, inspire children.

6. There is no rush in life, you will reach your goals when  

    you're ready.

8. Don't be shy, there is no reason to be.

9. Everything happens for a reason.

Hope everyone got home safely and the next round of interns are ready for a once in a life time experience with amazing people! - Marina Maze

Some other anonymous quotes from our interns:

“This experience was significant for me in that I completely removed myself from every life comfort and familiarity. I put myself in a totally unfamiliar place and it made me step out of my shell. I became more confident and have realized I am not as shy as I used to be. It taught me to take every moment as an opportunity to learn something about myself and about life.”

“This internship was one of the best experiences I have had; it is extremely unique. I love that the second you arrive you jump right in with whatever project is happening in that moment. The bond that forms between everybody on the boat is so special and you really feel like an important part of something great.”

“I will continue to be active in my marine debris removal, just like the Rozalia Project is. I will also not be afraid to contact organizations that I am interested in and voice my opinion, or ask to get involved. After the internship, I feel more independent, flexible, spontaneous, creative and pro-active.”

“This internship helped to solidify my desire to pursue further education and a future career in oceanography. It was a great way to test the waters of this field of study. After spending time on American Promise, I am now also interested in doing vessel research.”

If you, or know someone who might be interested in an internship with Rozalia Project, please check the “join us” section on our website or e-mail Rebecca@rozaliaproject.org.

As always, make sure to “like” us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @rozaliaproject, and check out our pictures on pinterest.com/rozaliaproject to see the excitement of Rozalia Project’s Fall Tour!

For a Clean Ocean,

Rebecca Inver Moffa

Director of Outreach