South Carolina’s Sea Grant Consortium hosts beach and river sweep

BLUFFTON, S.C (WTOC) - If you live in the Lowcountry, you may have seen cleanup crews throughout the beaches in your community.

That’s because South Carolina’s Sea Grant Consortium hosts a beach and river sweep on the third Saturday of September every year as a way to ensure beaches, swamps, rivers, lakes and marches across the state are staying clean.

Bluffton was one of the towns who participated in the 34th annual event.

Community members came together this morning with one goal finding and picking up as much trash as they could.

Storm water technicians for the town of Bluffton say events like these are extremely important.

They help the town evaluate what kinds of trash are getting picked up most often, like cigarette butts or dog bags, so they know what they should be focusing on when educating their community about waste.

It also allows them to see where the most trash is found, so they can see if they need to place more trash cans in the area... something that will help keep the town even cleaner going forward.

“With Bluffton, the May River is really the heart of Bluffton, it’s the life of Bluffton, so it’s really important that we’re keeping these areas clean and we’re making sure that everyone can enjoy them going forward as well as right now. And they’re also really important natural environments for all the animals living within it, they’re really important ecosystems so we want to make sure that we’re supporting them and supporting all of the animals that are living within this ecosystem as well as the people who kind of take from it,” Nicole Wright said.

Wright says last year the town of Bluffton was able to collect about 750 pounds of trash and they’re hoping to reach a number close to that this year.

Copyright 2023 WTOC. All rights reserved.