Beach Littered With Debris Following Holiday Celebration

TAMPA - Kevin Serra offered sunscreen to a couple clutching black garbage bags in the parking lot of Ben T. Davis Beach on the Courtney Campbell Parkway this morning.

They had their work cut out for them. Red paper from exploded fireworks flecked the pavement like confetti. Broken chunks of beer bottles mingled with red sticks from bottle rockets. Empty cardboard boxes of sparklers with names like Golden Flower and Morning Glory were scattered on the ground alongside a pair of plaid boxer shorts and cellophane wrappers from frosted doughnuts and ice cream.

"It's ridiculously bad," said Serra, a city Parks and Recreation Department employee who had arrived at 6 a.m. to clean the beach and shoreline.

The couple with him, Jordan Walker, 60, and his wife, Melissa, were among about 15 volunteers who joined the parks workers this morning to pick up trash left over from July 4 revelers.

This is the second year Tampa has participated in National Clean Beaches Week, an annual national event. Volunteers went either to Ben T. Davis Beach or to Picnic Island Beach between 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

Organizers said the volume of holiday beachgoers sparks a need for extra cleaning.

"There were probably well over a thousand people here last night. Some clean up after themselves, but a lot didn't," Serra said. "Thank God we have some volunteers out here this morning."

The parks workers provided trash bags, gloves, brooms and metal grabbing sticks for the volunteers to use. Serra also offered tips, such as crouching at the knees to save oneself from back pain.

He couldn't say how much trash the volunteers collected because the dump is closed today. All the trash from the effort will be weighed and tallied Monday, he said.

Even so, the volunteers were amazed by the amount and the oddity. Within about 40 minutes of work, Melissa Walker, 43, had nearly filled her trash bag with fireworks debris, empty cups and a whole box of Publix cupcakes.

"I've come out here other years just to take a run and noticed how horrendous the beach has been after the Fourth," she said.

Her husband, who works for the city's transportation division, was slightly envious his wife found the abandoned cupcakes.

"I've got flip flops and socks, things you wouldn't think people would lose. And a diaper. That was pretty icky," he said.

Some volunteers said they were working off required community-service hours from the University of South Florida. Other USF students said they participated because they belong to the campus' environmental association and have cleaned up along other areas, such as the Hillsborough River.

Students Sueann Feldman and Ashlee Duckworth, both 22, ventured beyond the beach parking lot, going over the guardrail to fetch beer cans, beer bottles, water bottles, used bottle rockets and soggy firecracker crates from the water's edge.

"It's disgusting," said Duckworth, her hands full of wrappers and cardboard tubes.

"I just found a Croc sandal," added Lyndsey Scofield, 21, another USF student working nearby. "I don't understand how people can just leave things and expect them to just go away."