Troubled Waters

By Dorothy Ingram South Carolina Coastal Master Naturalist

"Maria!” I shouted. “It’s 4:30, and time to call it a day.”

I could tell that it would be difficult to get Maria out of the marsh. Wearing high boots, lugging a full bag of trash, and positively stunned by all that she had found mired in the pluff mud, Maria was not alone in her dismay. Some 27 volunteers from Keep Wadmalaw Beautiful, the South Carolina Aquarium, and the Coastal Master Naturalists were on hand that day, working in the marsh, green spaces, and parking lot of Cherry Point Boat Landing on Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina. Keep Wadmalaw Beautiful had adopted this popular landing, under the auspices of the Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission’s (CCPRC) Adopt-A Landing Program, with the understanding that they would use a citizen science tool called the Litter-Free Digital Journal to record the litter they found. The haul included discarded light bulbs, fluorescent tubes, clothing, shoes, carpeting, building materials, along with 281 beverage cans, 86 glass bottles, and 423 assorted plastic items, including bags, bottles, food wrappers, straws, toys, utensils, and other miscellaneous plastics, as well as face masks, cigarette butts, and cigar tips, and in only the space of an hour and a half.

The Litter-Free Digital Journal (LFDJ), designed by the South Carolina Aquarium (SCA) in collaboration with MDI Biological Laboratory in Maine, is one of a suite of projects within the South Carolina Aquarium Citizen Science App that enables citizens worldwide to contribute important data in support of environmental conservation. LFDJ invites users to not only remove toxic debris from fragile ecosystems, but also to document their findings over time in an open access database. Both SCA and CCPRC recognize that there is a rapidly escalating problem with plastics and other debris choking the waterways that carry this refuse directly into our oceans.

To address litter and plastic pollution calls for databased problem solving to reach a clear understanding of what the problem actually is. Consequently, SCA and CCPRC volunteers, along with over 1400 other volunteer groups and individuals, routinely perform litter sweeps and record every piece of debris they find in the Litter-Free Digital Journal. South Carolina’s response to LFDJ data – well over one million discrete items of debris collected and catalogued since 2016 -- has been a successful, collective effort by civic leaders throughout coastal South Carolina to enact single use plastic bans in numerous South Carolina municipalities. Riverkeeper organizations and community members in the upstate have joined the effort as well, acknowledging that whatever goes into even the smallest of waterways will eventually end up in the ocean.

Columbo fans will remember the episode “Troubled Waters,” in which Peter Falk stands on the deck of an ocean liner gesturing out to sea. “That’s the biggest garbage dump in the world,” he proclaims, in his frustration over a missing clue that he believes his suspect has tossed overboard. This might have been a funny line in 1975, but it’s certainly no joke now. According to the EPA, plastic trash has the greatest potential of all forms of trash to harm the environment, wildlife, and humans. Smokers may not realize that cigarette filters are also composed of plastics, along with over 150 other chemicals. Those cigarette butts that are casually tossed aside by smokers at boat landings, on beaches, or on riverbanks, will join these other chemical pollutants that are poisoning our oceans and our planet.

On this particular day, Cherry Point volunteers collected 1,047 pieces of litter that have accumulated over time, dumped into the marsh and tossed onto greenspaces surrounding the boat landing. This litter sweep and data collection effort will join others of its kind to help the Parks department and other government agencies construct a picture of how big the problem is, what it’s composed of, where it’s coming from, and what it will take to resolve it.

To learn more about the Litter-Free Digital Journal and help find the solution to end plastic pollution wherever you are, visit scaquarium.org/conservation or anecdata.org/projects/view/122. Plastics are at the bottom of the ocean and in every waterway, while the toxins that are released as plastic breaks down are traveling up the food chain…and guess who’s at the top?

Volunteers after a successful cleanup at the Cherry Point boat landing on Wadmalaw Island. You could organize a cleanup as well! Photo by Kelly Thorvalson