A coalition of 53 volunteers removed 1,430 pounds of litter from San José Island earlier this month during a major coastal cleanup organized by the Texas Coastal Bend Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation and the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve.
Volunteers collected 287 bags of trash in two hours — enough debris to fill a 20-yard dumpster once transported back to Port Aransas.
According to organizers, roughly 95% of the recovered material consisted of plastic waste, including an estimated 4,600 plastic bottles collected from the shoreline and jetty system…