BERLIN — As an extension of its Trash Free Assateague project, the Assateague Coastal Trust (ACT) recently joined Ocean City Surf Club’s Adopt Your Block program, assuming duties for six blocks, 19th and 20th streets and 94th to 97th streets.
ACT will host several beach clean ups for the program throughout the year as a way to reduce the accumulation of trash on area beaches and raise awareness about community littering issues. With ACT’s adopting these four blocks, the Adopt Your Block program now has every street in Ocean City covered for volunteer coordinated clean-up efforts.
ACT will hold a beach clean up at their adopted streets on Monday, July 9 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. The clean-up will begin on the oceanside of 19th and 20th streets, where volunteers will sweep the vicinity beach, Boardwalk and head of street. The sweep will then move north to 94th Street and finish at 97th Street.
“These beach clean ups are more than just picking up trash off the beach,” said ACT’s Billy Weiland. “We are using events like these in our Trash Free Assateague project to raise awareness about the root of the problem. Littering has no place in any environment, and I created Trash Free Assateague as a way to educate our community about the problems littering and the excessive use of single use plastics are having on our environment, and, ultimately, on our own lives.”
Weiland added, “Trash Free Assateague exists to encourage every individual to adopt more sustainable lifestyles, to acknowledge their own environmental foot print, and to motivate folks to rekindle an environmental ethic by developing a working relationship with nature.”
Those interested in helping out with this post 4th of July Ocean City beach sweep should contact Weiland at [email protected]. Information about Trash Free Assateague and future clean ups and events are available on ACT’s Trash Free Assateague project page at www.actforbays.org/trash-free-assateague.html