Even before the clock struck 10 o’clock on the morning of July 5 — the official start of a South Sound Surfrider Foundation post-Fourth of July clean-up event — volunteers were already combing the Purdy Sandspit.
Setting off fireworks on the spit was banned starting this year, and a sign saying so was (and remains) posted at the entrance to the spit. But that didn’t stop the previous night’s revelers, who left behind all manner of fireworks debris and litter on the beach.
So underneath temperate grey skies, people — some from as far away as Redmond — banded together to clean the rocky beach. Trash they collected ranged from tiny pieces of dye-laden paper stuck to rocks and slender pieces of plastic wound into seaweed, to crumpled beer cans, large brown bottles, and empty food bags.
High tide
Volunteers also collected trash from earlier beach-goers who had not cleaned up after themselves, and from what Stena Troyer, Harbor WildWatch’s science director, said was due to the tendency of the wind to blow trash onto this particular beach…