South Brother Island trash.

HarborLAB is proud to participate in the annual September International Coastal Cleanup coordinated in our region by the Northeast Chapter of the American Littoral Society thanks to the Ocean Conservancy‘s sponsorship. We’ll continue the tradition begun by Erik Baard of cleaning up South Brother Island, a harbor heron refuge, thanks to relationships with the Natural Resources Group of NYC Department of Parks and Recreation he forged through his Nature Calendar blog. We’ll also be cleaning up other shorelines as a part of regular programming. Naturally, we’ll start with our launch site!

While the great Five Gyres gathering plastics in our oceans are now beginning to capture rightful media notice, so many coastal ecosystems are harmed by plastic pollution. Many species are harmed by injecting plastic and becoming trapped in it.

We invite to join us in our cleanups and urge you to participate in other groups’ cleanups — maybe start your own! That link again:  http://www.nysbeachcleanup.org/