Big Sweep to be Oct. 7
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on September 27, 2017 5:50 AM
Members of the 4-H For Life 4-H Club have been trudging through Wayne County's weeded areas and ditches for more than 10 years, picking up trash that others have carelessly discarded.
Each year during the annual Wayne Big Sweep watershed cleanup, members, who range in age from 5 to 18, go to different areas to pick up trash.
This year's event will take place Oct. 7 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Members of 4-H For Life has cleaned Cliffs of the Neuse State Park, behind the mall and other places in past years. This year, they are cleaning behind Target.
Last year, they found a $20 dollar bill and part of a scooter, along with the usual cigarette butts, drink cans, plastic bags and food wrappers. They collected eight big bags of trash in just two hours.
"We started doing Wayne Big Sweep because our club enjoys doing community service activities that help people," Newcomb said. "And there's a big need for it because a lot of trash gets thrown out of vehicles and ends up in the waterways and affects animals and our water.
"You don't think one piece of trash is going to do any damage, but when everybody throws out one piece of trash, it's a really big problem."
Wayne County people have helped clean waterways and ditches for the past 25 years, said coordinator Barbara Byers. They have cleaned Cliffs of the Neuse, Waynesborough Park and a lot of waterways and ditches.
She said the top 10 list of items found here in 2016 were food wrappers, foam plates, glass bottles, plastic bags, small plastic pieces, plastic grocery bags, cigarette butts, plastic forks, plastic beverage bottles and beverage cans. Some of the more unusual items that were found were 8-track tapes, scooter parts, sunglasses, PVC pipe, 50-gauge wire, lamps and pans.
Byers said the event is a great community service project for scouts, 4-H clubs, school clubs, churches and civic organizations, but anyone can participate.
She said no matter what kind of trash it is, it all hurts the wildlife and sea creatures.
"One time I went to a training and they showed us photos of trash once it gets out into the ocean," Byers said. "Stuff floats in giant mounds out in the ocean. That's what happens when trash goes out into the ocean. It's like a landfill out in the ocean. Fish go up and try to eat that stuff because they think it's food.
"I've seen pictures of brown pelicans that had eaten trash, and it wasn't going through their digestive tract and they died. They starve to death. That is so sad."
She's also seen pictures of birds around a lake that had picked up cigarette butts there and lined their nests with the filters.
"The nicotine poisoned the eggs, and they would never hatch," she said. "You just don't think about this stuff.
"When you throw out your plastic soda bottle onto the street, it can eventually end up killing sea life. You think it's just one bottle, it's just one bottle."
Anyone wanting to help during this year's Wayne Big Sweep should call Byers at 919-731-1527 or email her at Barbara.byers@waynegov.com by Oct. 5.
Volunteers will receive trash bags, data cards and gloves.