By Debbie Carson, Online Editor
WABASSO – Residents from all over the county took to the beaches Saturday morning – not to get an early start on hunting seashells, but to scrub the 22-or so miles of sandy shorelines clean of garbage.
More than 100 volunteers gathered at Wabasso Beach early Saturday to do their part for the environment.
“I kind of stopped counting,” said Keep Indian River Beautiful Executive Director Kristy Sturdivant of the number of volunteers registered for the site.
“Wabasso’s a pretty popular beach,” she said, adding that it’s usually fairly clean.
Sebastian siblings Andrew, 11, and Andrea Riffel, 14, found 20 cigarette butts stuck down in the sand, halfway hidden, within 15 minutes of getting started along the shore.
Andrew said he came out to help clean up the beach so people can keep coming back to it, enjoying the beach.
Andrea said that it is important for people to pick up the trash so it doesn’t kill animals.
Their grandparents, Tim and Laura Riffel, took them to the beach to help – but to also enjoy the outdoors.
Indian River Shores residents Joan and Frank Rathke were asked by their community to get involved, which brought them out to the beach.
After walking the shore for a bit, they realized that many of the volunteers had already scooped up what trash there was and said they would head back to their own beach to clean there.
The couple found a cigarette butt, a bottle cap and a coconut along the Disney Resort’s beach, which connects to Wabasso Beach.
“We’re impressed,” Joan Rathke said of how clean Disney’s beach is kept.
Sturdivant said that she would not know how much trash was plucked from the sands at the various beaches for about a week or two, noting that she will have to review the trash collection data cards volunteers were asked to fill out.
Keep Indian River Beautiful organized the county’s portion of the International Coastal Cleanup – a worldwide event held every year to clean up all the beaches.
Along with Wabasso Beach, volunteers spent their Saturday morning at the Sebastian Inlet, Jaycee Beach, South Beach and Round Island.