- This weekend people are working to cleanup the beaches in Panacea.
- The Coastal clean up is Saturday a 8 to 5pm At Woolley Park.
- Keep Wakulla Beautiful is organizing the event
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
"The more you can remove that out of there the better it is for these animals"
Meet Cypress Rudloe.
He works at the Gulf marine specimen lab in Panacea and knows how harmful trash can be to marine life off the coast of Wakulla County.
"You have things like fiddler crabs that are out there picking up and eating these plastics and baby fish are eating it and it will kill them that's a huge problem is animals eating plastic." Says Rudloe.
It's a big problem!
I checked with International Union for Conservation of Nature.
They say at least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year.
The Geneva Environment Network says plastic makes up 80% of all marine debris found from surface waters to deep-sea sediments.
Now, Wakulla County Leaders are planning a coastal cleanup.
They work to get rid of litter that shows up here.
Vacationers like Pam Overmyer say they do their part to help when they can.
"Plastic bottles and bags and cigarettes buds that's what we pick up on the beaches when we do these coastal cleanups." Says Overmyer.
Because if you don't get it...Rudloe says other animals will.
"All the animals that get rescued the marine animals they all have plastics in their system either plastic from bags destructors especially since they eat jellyfish they end up with plastic bags in their stomachs and those bags never decompose and it'll end up killing these animals" Says Rudloe.
One reason Overmyer does what she can to help, and encourages others to do the same.
"We have this beautiful natural resource here and it gets trashed and that's sad." Says Overmyer
Looking to get involved?
The Coastal cleanup is Saturday a 8 to 5pm At Woolley Park. Keep Wakulla County Beautiful is organizing the event.
