The Beaches of South Walton Tourist Development Council are inviting residents and visitors to help clean up its 26-mile coastline while participating in the world’s largest volunteer effort to protect the ocean during the 25th Annual International Coastal Cleanup on Saturday, Sept. 25 from 8 a.m. – 10 a.m.
The TDC is dedicating five main clean-up sites to the effort, with staging accesses at Miramar Beach, Dune Allen, Blue Mountain, Ed Walline and Inlet Beach. Complimentary clean-up supplies, water and Coastal Cleanup T-shirts will be provided at each access.
In addition, the clean up will also be held at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park. Volunteers are invited to park at the day use parking lot and ride the tram to the beach (parking fees have been waived for those participating in the clean up).
Coastal Cleanup is an international program sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy, the world’s foremost advocate for the oceans, engaging people to remove trash and debris from the world’s beaches and waterways, to identify the sources of debris and to change the behaviors that cause them. Locally sponsored by the Walton County Tourist Development Council (WCTDC) and Walton County Schools, this program encourages stewardship of the county’s precious environment. For 25 years, the debris collected during Coastal Cleanup has been cataloged and sent to the Ocean Conservancy to produce the world’s only annual country-by-country, state-by-state index of the problem of marine debris. During last year’s clean-up, more than 500,000 volunteers joined their communities to clean up local beaches, lakes and rivers, while removing and tallying more than 7.4 million pounds of debris in 108 countries and 45 U.S. states, and the District of Columbia.
For more information, contact Rae Ellis at the TDC at (850) 267-4578 or sign-up at http://www.signuptocleanup.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Projects.Main.