This weekend our local beach, normally fairly clean, was a jumble of discarded water bottle lids, bits of fabric, old sand toys, and pieces of boardwalk (from Hurricane Sandy). It was startling (eye-opening?) to see the amount of trash that the parting nor’easter had left in its wake. Had I had them, the two block walk would have filled several large trash bags. The wind was howling, and the ocean was still roiling and boiling. The flotsam and jetsam, which was continuing to wash up, was nearly as much man-made as it was marine life.
We have all read articles about helium balloons finding their way into sea mammals. While this cluster, thankfully, was not ingested, it did not belong in the sand either.

I almost never include man made items in my photographs, however this needed to be shared, and I will likely share other similar photos over the next weeks.
It is my own very small contribution to environmental efforts.
Please discard your trash in receptacles. Always.