Monthly Morningside Park Cleanup
Miami, Florida
January 11, 2025
Overview
On the morning of January 11th, 2025, The International SeaKeepers Society hosted our monthly cleanup at Morningside Park in Miami. We were joined by 35 volunteers who received a quick background briefing on the area and some of the hotspots to search for trash before they grabbed gear and spread out around the park. Morningside and its surrounding community are undergoing a shoreline-based construction project, so similarly to our last cleanup our volunteers were able to focus their efforts on the more inland and terrestrial aspects of the park. In addition, our volunteers were able to collect data to be shared with scientists on the most common types of trash through the use of Citizen Science app Marine Debris Tracker. After just two hours of hard work, we had removed more than 58 lbs of trash from the park, leaving behind a cleaner ecosystem for people and animals to enjoy. Many of our volunteers reported the park seemed cleaner than in previous cleanups, likely stemming from the reduced human activity due to the construction project. However, we were still able to make a significant impact in drastically reducing the amount of microplastics and single-use plastics that were hidden in the inshore mangroves and grasses. By reducing our plastic use and opting for sustainable alternatives, the park would not have nearly as much of these types of waste. We give a huge thanks to our volunteers for joining us and for their incredible work, and we look forward to hopefully seeing some of them at future events!
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, 37 percent of volunteers participated in using the app to record data.
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