Atlantic Beach (Middletown) and Easton’s Beach (Newport) 10.2.09
Trash collected: 8.13 lbs.

Atlantic Beach and Easton’s Beach are side by side on Easton Bay in the Rhode Island Sound, flanked by  Cliff Walk’s mansions on one side and more modest houses and cottages on the other.   These are old and well known beaches; restaurants and hotels have sprouted up around them.   Today it’s a beautiful afternoon at low tide, birds everywhere – white gulls, brown gulls and smaller birds.  Shells everywhere too – huge Quahog and other clam shells, tiny crabs, lobster claws.  The birds are busy poking the shells and having a feast.

I walk with my bag and my camera, not seeing any garbage.  This beach is super clean, I think, maybe there won’t be anything to pick up.  Then I start to see pieces of plastic, pieces of children’s toys, and golf balls.  Lots of plastic.  Plastic cups, plastic containers, plastic bags, plastic in all sizes and bright colors – red, blue, orange, yellow, purple.

Twenty minutes is up.   I haven’t reached Atlantic Beach, so I continue.  In the end, I collect 8.13 pounds in about 40 minutes.   I photograph the bags and throw them in a nearby can.

Gooseberry Beach (Newport) 10.2.09
Trash collected:  4 lbs.


Gooseberry Beach is on Ocean Drive, also on the Rhode Island Sound and just a few minutes from the historic mansions on Bellevue Avenue – Marble House, Rosecliff, The Breakers, Rough Point.  It’s a small beach, and in the parking lot I meet a surfer just off the beach and loading his surfboard into his truck.  I walk toward the beach.

Gooseberry Beach is a tiny, tiny beach with mansions dotted in the distance.  There are rock formations in the water, and on Gooseberry Island – a tiny piece of rock and land – a final mansion in the distance.  It’s a beautiful, protected cove – just the wind, the water and some cars driving by.   On this quiet afternoon, and in the middle of some of the most private property in the country, anyone can enjoy this beach in off season.  In just 10 minutes I’ve walked the beach and collected 4 lbs. of garbage – a child’s dress, bottles, and more plastic.