Volunteers Pick Thousands of Pieces of Litter from Folly
Toby the Turtle’s first annual Folly Beach Island-Wide Spring Clean took place on Sunday, April 3rd, 2022. The event was a deep clean of the island’s roadways and beach areas completed by more than 225 volunteers.
The event, organized by the Folly Association of Business (FAB) Litter Committee, had twelve stations operated by the South Carolina Aquarium and Charleston Surfrider. The staff members of these fantastic organizations supplied equipment and Litter Free Digital Journal (LFDJ) data forms to volunteers, and they educated participants on the importance of correct data entry. LFDJ is a critical tool for tracking the amount and types of litter collected during a sweep. This data provides information about our coast’s litter issues and is instrumental in lobbying our state government for rules to help protect our wildlife and keep our waters and beaches cleaner.
Together, the hundreds of volunteers collected nearly 12,000 individual pieces of litter on Folly! The volunteers thoroughly combed the island, uncovering tons of discarded debris not only on the beach but also throughout the business district and residential areas. LFDJ logs revealed that 68% of the waste collected was plastic-based. Although both styrofoam and plastic retail bags are banned from Folly, volunteers removed a few hundred of them! However, the most numerous item collected by far was cigarettes and smoking filters, with over 2,600 pieces. The second most common litter item recovered was plastic food wrappers, with over 1,300 pieces. The group even uncovered a vehicle in the marshy area near 9th Street West Ext.!
We want to shout out to the FAB Litter Committee and their Chairperson, Vanessa Oltmann, as well as Toby the Turtle for orchestrating this event and for everything they do for Folly every day. We would also like to thank the South Carolina Aquarium, Charleston Surfrider, Waves4Women, JI ACTKIDVISTS, West Ashley High School Senior Marketing Department, and Sunset Cay Group. We could not have done it without all of these wonderful people coming together!
And last but certainly not least, we want to thank every individual who came out to participate! Toby is stoked about all of the people who care enough to help Keep Folly Clean! This was the first annual litter sweep on Folly, and it will continue in the years to come. Join us next year!
