Winter Texan beach cleanup Friday

It used to be that most of the trash on the beaches of South Padre Island was due to oceangoing vessels dumping their garbage overboard. That’s changed: Now it’s beachgoers who are responsible for most of the beach trash.

An international treaty enacted in the late 1980s to curb dumping at sea has made a dent, to some degree, in the trash that gets washed in from the Gulf. Individual litterbugs are a different kind of scourge. Until they can be persuaded to change their trashy ways, the rest of us will have to go on picking up after them.

Coming this Friday is an opportunity to do just that: The Adopt-a-Beach South Padre Island Winter Texan Cleanup is scheduled for this Feb. 10 at Edwin Atwood Park, off Highway 100 at Beach Access No. 5 on the Island. Registration is from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and the cleanup runs until 11:30 a.m. The morning will end with a "What Did You Find?" session and refreshments. The event is one of three all-volunteer seasonal cleanups coordinated through the Adopt-a-Beach Program of the Texas General Land Office. The Cameron County Parks Department is a co-sponsor.

GLO spokesman Jim Suydam said the Adopt-a-Beach cleanups "put the elbow grease into environmentalism."

"These are folks that would rather pick up a soda can than walk on by," Suydam said. "They’re the ones who come out for this."

The GLO organizes the cleanups, alerting the media, coordinating volunteers and supplying gloves and trash bags. The cleanups are funded mainly through private contributions. Since the Adopt-a-Beach program began in 1986, volunteers have collected enough trash on Texas beaches to fill a line of dump trucks 90 miles long, according to the GLO. In the history of the SPI cleanup, 1,713 volunteers have removed 86,345 pounds (43 tons) of trash. Normal participation for the SPI event is about 100 volunteers, Suydam said. Even last year, despite very cold temperatures, 36 volunteers removed 1,650 pounds of trash from three miles of beach, he said.

Among the featured topics at an Adopt-a-Beach Marine Debris Summit on Galveston Island last month was the rising tide of dirty diapers on Texas beaches and how to combat it. Another topic focused on trash related to driving on the beach — a cherished Texas tradition. The summit’s keynote speaker was Sylvia Earle, advisory board chairman for the Texas A&M Harte Research Institute and explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society. Her observation was that humans are trashing the oceans more than ever before.

"She talked about how at the beginning of her career she never saw trash on the seafloor," Suydam said. "Now she sees it all the time. It’s changed within her lifetime."

Objects such as like six-pack rings and plastic bags can be lethal for dolphins, sea turtles and other marine life, he said.

"It’s not uncommon to find sea turtles with a belly full of plastic," Suydam said. "A turtle can’t feed itself at that point."

He doesn’t think litterbugs are necessarily bad people; they just aren’t thinking, he said.

"We want people to think about it," Suydam said.

It’ll take nothing less than a cultural shift, which in return will require some serious education. Cleanups themselves can play a key role in that process, he said.

"I think one of the best ways is take kids out to participate in these beach cleanups," Suydam said. "Any kid that spends four hours picking up cigarette butts and beer cans will never look at litter the same way again. That kid is not going to litter in the future."

He asserted that children are more willing to learn new ways not as cemented in their ways as adults are.

It’ll be the adults, however, out in force this Friday at Edwin Atwood Park, rain or shine. And by and large, they’ll be Winter Texans.

"They’re the kind of people that can’t stand to walk past a bunch of trash on the beach," Suydam said. "We’re happy to organize their efforts. The volunteers really are the key to this whole program’s success. There aren’t a bunch of state employees involved in this."

For more information or to support Adopt-a-Beach call the GLO at (877) 892-6278 or visit

Adopt-a-Beach Program Winter Texan Beach Cleanup

>> Edwin Atwood Park, Beach Access No. 5, Highway 100, South Padre Island

>> Friday, Feb. 10, 8:30 a.m. to noon