May 30, 2024 – It’s always great to get a fresh perspective on a problem. FLORIDA TODAY has just published a comprehensive article that breaks down many of the challenges faced by all of us in terms of cleaning up our beautiful area. We encourage you to follow the link and read the entire piece, but here’s an excerpt to give you a sample of what you’ll find:

(From FLORIDA TODAY)

Jim Waymer

We all can see it. The Indian River Lagoon is loused up by a litany of litter. It’s our fault, to a degree, but also by most accounts, those ‘out-of-towners’ also share blame.

The cigarette butts, plastics and other junk keep pilling up, along with frustration over the endless blight, especially along the causeways that lead to Brevard County’s barrier islands. Tourism officials hate it. Volunteers try to deal with it, and we all see it.

The careless, with no regard, flick cigarette butts, leave behind fishing lines, aluminum cans, plastic cups, sometimes even plastic or wooden chairs — all of it, left in or alongside an estuary of national significance. You name it, it’s out there.

“We get lots of furniture,” said John Nico, executive director of the nonprofit Keep Brevard Beautiful. “There’s auto parts .. barrels of stuff,” Nico added. “My crew, they’re tough, and they endure a lot.”

But they can’t go it alone, because sometimes beauty is only lagoon deep, while untold trash lurks hidden along the estuary’s bottom. What’s on the surface is nasty enough: KBB estimates it collected 1.85 million pounds of trash from roads and waterways in Brevard last year.

If you’re sick of seeing so much junk above or below the lagoon, and want to do something, Keep Brevard Beautiful has three specific events where you can pitch in and pick up this summer. The yearly Summer Series cleanups, sponsored by FLORIDA TODAY, kick off via kayak on June 1 at Turkey Creek in Palm Bay. If you participate in all three, you will be in the running to win a new kayak.

But you’ll be doing local wildlife a favor, as well.

Read the rest of the article here: FLORIDA TODAY