Children participating in the ALASA Academy, Inc. Children.s Summer Workshops were part of the 9,896 volunteers helping to clean up New York.s shoreline as part of the 25th year of the International Costal Clean-up. Again this year. During excursions to Second and Third Creek in the summer, including the Red Mill and Shaker Tract roadsides, the children pick up trash and record their efforts. This information is then given to the SOS director of the local Sodus Bay effort in September. For the last 3 years their names have been recorded as official volunteers along with others from all over the world. They energetically search for the debris and proudly sign the record sheet.

The following article from the director, Mark Tyman, gives them and all of us some of the statistics for New York and the efforts being made around the world. Hopefully, the children will all take a little extra pride in what they do so willingly and how every little bit helps, when they read the amazing totals. We all need to take a moment to try to fathom where this trash would end up if volunteers like the ALASA Children, didn.t do their part in ridding the New York Shorelines of more than 134,530 pounds of trash collected just this year.

It must seem like a long time ago that we all meet at the Sodus Point beach parking lot for our morning of good deeds and getting dirty. I just received some updated statistics from the American Littoral Society (NYS organizer for the International Coastal Cleanup) and I thought you might be interested. 2009 was the 24th year the American Littoral Society has coordinated this event in New York State. The first event in 1986 had 100 volunteers at 4 sites, 2009 had 9,896 volunteers at close to 300 sites.

134,530 lbs. of trash were collected along 300 miles of shoreline, filling 98,000 trash bags and a number of dumpsters.

The top twelve categories of waste in New York State are as follows:

61,260 cigarettes/cigarette filters
38,183 caps, lids
29,987 food wrappers/containers
25,309 plastic bags
21,596 plastic beverage bottles
17,999 straw/stirrers
17,508 cups, plates, knives, forks, spoons
15,010 glass beverage bottles
13,884 beverage cans
9,021 paper bags
6,389 clothing, shoes
5,740 balloons

New York is the fourth highest state for volunteer turn out. Only California, Florida and North Carolina surpass us for number of volunteers participating on an annual basis. As the American Littoral Society plans for their 25th year of participating in the International Coastal Cleanup they want to thank everyone who has been involved in making this such a popular and successful campaign.
Save Our Sodus has been involved with the cleanup for six years and, as with the American Littoral Society, we see increasing numbers of volunteers every year. That in turn allows us to target more areas of the bay for cleanup. The job seems never ending but with your support we continue to make headway in our mission to preserve and protect the water quality of Great Sodus Bay.
Thanks to all our hard working volunteers on a job well done and we will hope to see you in September.

Mark Tyman