Rick Neale, FLORIDA TODAY

SATELLITE BEACH – Burnt bottle rockets. Cigarette butts by the dozen. Plastic bags. Tattered food wrappers. Plus beer cans, lip balm, sunglasses and even a comb and toothbrush.

Garbage items littered the sand and sea oats at Hightower Beach Park after Fourth of July festivities, prompting Keep Brevard Beautiful volunteers to take action.

Rebecca Fitzgerald, of West Melbourne, helps clean up Tables Beach. (Photo: Craig Rubadoux, FLORIDA TODAY)

Twenty-five to 30 people participated in beach cleanups Sunday morning at Hightower — where five buckets of miscellaneous junk were collected — and Fischer Park in Cocoa Beach, Cherie Down Park in Cape Canaveral and Tables at Patrick Air Force Base.

“We’ve been finding a lot of wigs and hair extensions. I can’t tell you why, but we’ve been finding them — and diapers,” said Denise Song, KBB environmental programs and events director.

“I can’t understand why people can’t find a garbage can,” Song said.

Nine KBB volunteers at Fischer Park cleaned up the debris from the Cocoa Beach fireworks show launch site, filling nine trash bags. They wielded pistol-grip long-handle grabbing tools, similar to Gophers featured on television infomercials.

After an afternoon of thunderstorms, Cocoa Beach went ahead with their fireworks display. It was rain or shine, with lightning being the only factor that would have canceled the show.

Kyle Fitzgerald, of West Melbourne, is a volunteer with Keep Brevard Beautiful who also helped clean the beach. (Photo: Craig Rubadoux, FLORIDA TODAY)

Song said plastic straws from Capri Sun foil pouches are showing up more and more in seaweed strands. She warned that small rubbish items like straws and cigarette butts can end up in the stomachs of birds and sea turtles.

“When there’s a cigarette butt that’s missing its paper wrapper, it looks like a crustacean to them,” she said.

Song said rainfall, storms and dreary skies greatly reduced beach trash collections this Fourth of July weekend, compared with past holidays.

Saturday in Cocoa Beach, Song collected a trove of trash from the First Street North beach-end parking area: two diapers, 12 cans, 14 straws, nine water-bottle caps, four Capri Sun pouches, three fountain-drink lids and a hanger.

“The birds and (wildlife), they don’t know the difference where the line is where the beachfronts end. If we litter through the parking lots, we need to clean those too,” Song said.

An empty plastic water bottle on the beach.

The beach cleanup effort comes two days after the Fourth of July. (Photo: Craig Rubadoux, FLORIDA TODAY)

“There are trash cans just a couple of steps away,” she said.

Contact Neale at 321-242-3638, rneale@floridatoday.com or follow @RickNeale1.

Crowds enjoy the fire works show at the First annual Fireworks before the Fireworks event held Thursday night at Port Canaveral. (Photo: CRAIG RUBADOUX/FLORIDA TODAY)

Volunteers wanted

Keep Brevard Beautiful needs volunteers to clean beaches Saturday morning at Pelican Beach Park in Satellite Beach and the Canova Beach Park dog-friendly beach near Indian Harbour Beach.

Pelican Beach hours are 8:30 to 11:30 a.m., and Canova Beach hours are 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

For information, call Denise Song at 321-631-0501 ext. 203 or 321-432-3620.

Kyle Fitzgerald, of West Melbourne, picks up litter on the beach. (Photo: Craig Rubadoux, FLORIDA TODAY)

Trash items include cans, bottles, wrappers and other items. (Photo: Craig Rubadoux, FLORIDA TODAY)