Around low tide late Friday morning, members of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation pushed out from a boat ramp near the Granby Street Bridge.
Before long, they spotted a plastic bag floating in the water. Lisa Renee Jennings, Hampton Roads outreach and advocacy manager with the nonprofit, scooped it up with a long fishing net.
“These are the worst, the plastic bags,” she said. “We use them for minutes and this is what happens to them.”
The bay foundation is gearing up for its 37th annual Clean the Bay Day on May 2. Volunteers canvass about 200 sites across Virginia to pick up as much trash as they can.
On average, the event draws about 4,000 people who pick up more than 75,000 pounds of trash within a few hours, Jennings said.
There’s never a shortage of litter. Plastic has proven the most pervasive and pernicious over the years.
But there does seem to be growing awareness about the impact of single-use plastics, Jennings said. Products such as salad clamshell containers and car tires break down into tiny particles, called microplastics, that end up just about everywhere, including fish served at local restaurants.
Within a few minutes of stopping at a section of shoreline along Lafayette River Friday, the group found glass and plastic bottles, candy wrappers and a Styrofoam takeout box.
Jennings said she hopes that’s the last time she sees the latter, because Virginia has banned plastic Styrofoam containers. The law took effect last year for food vendors with 20 or more locations, but expands to all food vendors this summer.
Litter can harm wildlife, but it also represents pollution we can’t easily see, she said.
“We can't see the nitrogen, we can’t see the phosphorus, and a lot of the time we don't see the sediment going into the water. But as it rains and this trash is traveling through, it's taking with it all the other pollutants.”
You can register to participate in Clean the Bay Day at cbf.org/clean.
