The tenth annual Great Beach Cleanup, along the National Seashore, is in the books. But it wasn’t without its challenges.
Volunteers for the four-day cleanup had to contend with nor’ easter conditions and a lack of help from park employees furloughed during the federal government shutdown. Nonetheless, organizer Laura Ludwig said the cleanup was “fantastic.”
“This shutdown is sort of a frustration on more of an administrative side than a functional, sort of, field work side because we will continue to do the field work, but we won’t have the funding for it,” Ludwig said.
Ludwig runs the Center for Coastal Studies Marine Debris & Plastics Program. She said, due to the federal shutdown, the cleanup didn’t have the benefit of seashore staff to help haul trash off the beach.
“They only have two people going right now, so they couldn’t actually do any of the retrieval for us,” she explained. But, she said, there were rangers on duty who helped make the cleanup a success.
“We communicated constantly and they patrolled the route for us to make sure it was passable,” Ludwig said.
With the 2025 Great Beach Cleanup completed, CCS kicked off a two-year island cleanup project with a slate of partner organizations. That effort is in full swing this week with a four-day cleanup of Marsh Island, in Fairhaven. Marine debris will also be collected on Martha’s Vineyard, Cuttyhunk, and Nomans Land as part of that effort.
