BERLIN – Assateague Coastal Trust (ACT) and the National Park Service at Assateague Island National Seashore have announced the 2017 Assateague Island Beach Clean Up will be held Saturday, Sept. 30 on the Maryland portion of the National Seashore.
The event, which is open to anyone who wants to participate, begins at 9 a.m. at the North Beach Parking Lot on Assateague Island National Seashore. It is a “fee free” weekend at the National Seashore and visitors may enter the park for free.
Participants may park in the north parking lot on the left just after entering the National Seashore and are to check in at the registration table manned by volunteers from Assateague Coastal Trust and the National Park Service. Participants are encouraged to bring gloves, bug spray, sunscreen and water. Trash bags will be provided and volunteers will be assigned to a cleanup location and provided a tally sheet for tracking what has been collected.
“In past years, the most often collected item of beach litter has been cigarette butts, plastic bottle caps and plastic food containers,” said ACT Programs Assistant Billy Weiland.
The tally sheets will be collected when participants return to the registration table and deposit their collected trash in trucks provided by the Park Service. The data from the tally sheets will be entered into an international data base.