Volunteers pitch in to clean up Harrison County beaches

HARRISON COUNTY, Miss. (WLOX) - Volunteers took advantage of the picture perfect weather on Sunday to make the beach a little cleaner.

The Institute of Marine Mammal Studies, along with the Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine and the Mississippi Coastal Cleanup Program organized an Earth Day beach cleanup this weekend that drew out 42 volunteers, like Andrew Medhurst.

“I was anxious to get out here and help clean up the beach that I frequently use. It’s a nice day and I can’t think of anything better than help clean up this area,” said Medhurst.

Long Beach Boy Scouts Troop 205 also got involved, and Matthew Kruk was not surprised by all the trash he found.

“Knowing how like toxic the community is out here, leaving all their trash out here, sometimes it’s surprising and sometimes it’s not,” said Kruk.

Organizers said that 227 pounds of trash was collected Sunday.

“One of the biggest things that we’ve really been finding is just food wrappers so just little things of people getting ice cream and then dropping their food wrappers on the ground instead of trying to throw them away,” said Sara Dietz, with MSU College of Veterinary Medicine.

IMMS said this cleanup is important not only for the beauty of the beaches but also for the marine life.

“There’s a lot of times that we find these animals that are washing up that ingested plastic or may have fishing pollutants wrapped around them so it’s really important that we get out here and we clean up after ourselves,” said Morgan Deaton.

Volunteers were hopeful that the work they did will make a difference.

“Just wanted to help out the community and make the world a better place,” said Kruk

Volunteers cleaned up in three locations, including near the Coast Coliseum, Long Beach Harbor, and Jones Park.

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