HIGHLIGHT: NEW JERSEY
Sandy Hook: Volunteers cleaning up state beaches last year found everything but the kitchen sink. Oh wait, they found one of those, too. Unsurprisingly, nearly 82% of 454,365 pieces of trash removed during Clean Ocean Action’s beach sweeps was plastic. The number of cigarette butts picked up, 22,000, was down by nearly a quarter from a year earlier. Balloons reached an all-time high: 5,470 were found. They are hazardous to marine life, including sea turtles that mistake them for jellyfish and eat them. Stout-hearted volunteers also picked up 565 condoms, an increase of more than 56% from 2017, and 267 baby diapers, up 78%.