Trash

 3/4- Mustang Island State Park 

   This morning we took a walk down the beach. Texas makes available these net bags for picking up trash on the beach. They are available for free at stations all along the beach. The cool thing is lots of people use these bags and pick up trash. We certainly did. In about a 1 1/2 Mile walk we filled 2 bags so full I could barely lift them up into the dumpster. The sad part is we hardly dented the amount of trash that washes ashore here. Even on the walk back we were seeing new trash that had washed up in less than one hour. 

    Bottle caps were the big winner if you can call them that. There were literally thousands of bottle caps. We even found a bottle that was corked but alas no treasure map. After hearing all the talk about microplastics it really hits home when you watch the wave die on the beach and there is this thin line of mostly tiny pieces of plastic left behind. You just know that fish and birds are mistakenly eating some of these tiny pieces. 

   It is not just in the water that we feel inundated with trash. The roadsides are awash with litter. The ubiquitous plastic shopping bag is attached to thousands of barbed wire fences. Not to mention cacti and all the plants with thorns make good attachment sites for trash also. 

   The wind has been strong for a couple of days now blowing out of the south which has pushed the water further up the beach. People normally drive on the beach here but there is so little beach available that it’s not a good idea.  In the middle of our walk today a strong front came through and the wind flipped 180 degrees and blew even harder. You talk about confused seas. Waves were breaking in almost every direction. It was an upwind walk in both directions. After the front went through the wind stayed strong out of the north but it did clear the skies and make for a nice sunny day.