TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. – The City of Treasure Island installed two new trash bag dispensers offering free trash bags to beachgoers, just in time for spring break.
“Basically, there are a few hotspots in the city where we were seeing an accumulation of trash without a lot of options to dispose of their trash conveniently,” Paul Cardamon, GIS administrator and sustainability coordinator for Treasure Island, said.
The concept is pretty straightforward: Grab a free bag on your way to the sand, fill it with your own garbage, and then toss the whole thing into a city trash bin as you leave the beach.
The city rushed to get the two dispensers installed – one near Sunset Vista Trailhead Park and the other by Caddy’s — right before the spring break rush.
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The Surfrider Foundation, a national environmental nonprofit, reports they have already picked up more than 9,000 pounds of trash at clean-ups around the country this year, including in Florida. The majority of that debris is plastic, according to the organization’s data.
“Still a lot of straws and stuff like that that people don’t see and don’t pick up,” Sherry Knowles, an Iowa resident who winters in Treasure Island, told FOX 13 Tuesday.
In fact, Knowles sees the problem firsthand: She said she regularly volunteers with local cleanup crews.
“You can imagine how much trash we have,” Knowles explained. “Hundreds of pounds every time — once a month or twice a month we do the cleanup.”
So when Knowles saw the new, free trash bag dispensers, she was thrilled.
“Bravo, yay, that’s a great thing!” Knowles said. “It’s really awesome to know that they care enough about our beaches to keep them clean.”
According to an online calculator created by the Ocean Conservancy, properly disposing of a plastic bottle with its cap, plus a cup, plate, and food container, can save one sea turtle and one seabird.
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The city worked with the Treasure Island Adopt-A-Beach program to install the two dispensers.
So far, the city says the pilot program is a success.
“Usually you do get some complaints about trash cans overflowing or trash on the beach, but we haven’t gotten anything so far since spring break has started,” Cardamon said.
The city hopes to eventually add more free trash bag stands to other stretches of the coastline.
The Source: Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13’s Ariel Plasencia.