Monthly Morningside Park Cleanup

Overview

On the morning of August 18, 2024, The International SeaKeepers Society hosted our monthly cleanup at Morningside Park in Miami. We were joined by 20 volunteers who received a quick briefing on the area and chose their materials before setting out throughout the park. Morningside’s shores are covered in narrow crevices between rocks as well as large-rooted mangrove systems, so removing the finer trash and microplastics from these areas can be difficult, but is critical to saving these ecosystems and keeping them healthy. Our volunteers were also able to collect data to be shared with scientists and lawmakers on the most common types of trash through the use of citizen-science app Marine Debris Tracker. Despite the majority of our findings being smaller and lighter plastics such as bottle caps, plastic bags, and wrappers, our volunteers successfully collected and removed more than 60 pounds of trash from all over the park. We also had help from some of our volunteers in separating the amassed trash in order to collect the bottle caps from the day as part of SeaKeepers’ collaboration with Biscayne Nature Center. These donated bottle caps will be sent to organizations and individuals that clean, melt down and reuse the bottle caps to create art, jewelry and other items. We give a huge thanks to our volunteers for their incredible work and hope to see them at some of our future cleanups!

Marine Debris Tracker is a data collection app that allows the general public to contribute to an open-date platform and scientific research by recording the different types of litter, specifically plastic pollution, that they find in either inland or marine environments. Marine Debris Tracker was developed by the University of Georgia’s Jambeck Research Group, which SeaKeepers worked with in 2021 when the Jambeck Research Group collaborated with Ocean Conservancy to assess Miami’s plastic waste management, known as a Circularity Assessment Protocol. SeaKeepers again assisted the Jambeck Research Group’s Circularity Informatics Lab in 2022 with another Circularity Assessment Protocol in the Florida Keys. The researchers of the Jambeck Lab use the Marine Debris Tracker app to record their data, and with citizen scientists also using the app, more data can be collected in different areas. Using Marine Debris Tracker at our cleanups involves community members in creating a bigger picture of plastic pollution, and provides the means for new scientific findings to be generated as well as for effective local legislation to be informed. SeaKeepers is excited to be incorporating this app at our cleanups and continue our mission of coastal education, protection, and restoration. In this cleanup, 35% of volunteers participated in using the app to record data.