Volunteers swept out across the beaches of Ocean City on a cool and crisp Saturday as part of the Fall Beach Sweep sponsored by the City of Ocean City and Clean Ocean Action.
Final counts are not available yet, but in 2014 nearly 7,000 volunteers flocked to 55 different sites on the New Jersey coastline and collected more than 315,000 pieces of debris. Plastic continued to be the No. 1 type of debris collected, representing 68.9% of the haul.
The semiannual “counted cleanups” ask volunteers to use data cards to record the litter they collect. The information is entered into a national database of marine debris.
Volunteers worked from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday in Ocean City and at nine other locations in Cape May County.
