Plastics dominate this sample of trash collected by a volunteer on Sachuest Beach in Middletown. Microplastics littering Rhode Island’s coastline increased in 2025, according to a new Save the Bay report. (Photo by Pam Gilpin for Rhode Island Current)
Cigarette butts strewn across the sand and plastic bottles bobbing in the waves are the most obvious targets of frustration about litter on Rhode Island beaches.
But the button-sized plastic and foam pieces less visible to the casual observer might be a more serious problem. More than 14,000 of these 2.5-or-smaller centimeter pieces were collected from state shorelines as part of 2025 volunteer-led efforts through the International Coastal Cleanup, according to a new report from Save the Bay…