SARASOTA – It’s a day dedicated to informing and cleaning up the world’s oceans.
“We wanted to have a World’s Oceans Day beach cleanup, we wanted to take part of the event,” said Tara Caguiat, content manager at beach.com.
Beach.com and Sarasota County partnered for the inaugural World’s Oceans Day beach cleanup at Siesta Key Beach. Caguiat says nearly 300 pounds of trash was collected along the sandy shorelines of Siesta Key Beach.
“Based on what I saw and started documenting it was mainly glass bottles, plastic bottles and plastic containers of all sorts, and cigarette butts everywhere,” said Caguiat. “Cigarette butts are such a horrible problem there’s just probably thousands and thousands in that pile.”
Caguiat says hundreds of beach goers came out to pick up trash and do their part saying #NOTONMYBEACH. “We’re hoping that we encouraged a lot of people to take stock of their plastic use and be mindful,” she said.
Mote Marine Lab hosted their own World Oceans Day festival. Mote Marines Stephannie Kettle says families can come to the aquarium and find out what role they can play in keeping our oceans clean.
“So in the aquarium we have lots of fun activities for children and adults to learn about oceans, learn about conservation, ways to get involved,” said Kettle. “Today is really about helping connect people with our oceans and what they can do to help save them.”
Both Caguiat and Kettle agree on is residents on the Suncoast can do more to converse and protect our oceans by staying informed.