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No oil, but still plenty of people who trash the beach...

People are losing their minds over the oil spill, and no doubt this is a major catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. But why don't people care as much about our beaches, bays, rivers, lakes and wetlands when it comes to our own trash?

This photo was taken June 16, 2010 in a bayou off North Bay, in Bay County, Florida. Fishermen decided to toss their filleted snapper off the boat in the ice bag. How can anyone who enjoys fishing do something like this to the water and animals?

The oil will hopefully be cleaned up by BP and eventually, even if it takes decades, the Gulf should be healthy. But if we continue to do stupid individual acts like this, why would we expect the Gulf to ever be healthy again?

Alternative Spring Break Students in Panama City Beach

Many thanks to the team from Michigan Tech who traveled 26 hours to reach the world's most beautiful beaches, and served 5 days helping us keep the beach clean. Way to go Michigan Tech Huskies!

Students Speak to the TDC

Marc and Nick stood before Bay County's Tourist Development Council to thank them for the hospitality and to encourage better options for cleaner beaches. The students suggested securing the trash barrels, offering bags to tourists and making it easy for all to participate in keeping the beach clean. Great job, students!

Welcome Back, Huskies!

Students from Michigan Tech traveled 26 miles in their school van to help Panama City Keep the Beach Clean. We are happy to have Michigan Tech for the 2nd year in a row. Thanks again to Royal American Hospitality for housing the students again this year, the third annual Keep the Beach Clean Alternative Spring Break.

Video from WMBB - Tent City on the Beach

Panama City Beach Trash, July 4, 2009

Worse than the spring break photos, if you ask me. At least the spring break junk is isolated and fairly easy to clean up. Fireworks make a ridiculous mess.

Hopefully one of you experts -- maybe even an expert employed / contracted with the TDC -- could say, "Kirk, no worries. This waste is biodegradable and gone in a few days. It's harmless to our sand, our image and our environment."

PCB Taking Some Trash Action!

The Panama City Beach City Council approved tougher city ordinances all the time, not just in a 24 hour period. If enforced, this could be a big, big boost to keeping Panama City Beach clean. A big round of kudos to Mayor Oberst, Council members and the Tourist Development Council Board on making this happen.

I will keep an eye on the private beaches that now must be kept clean, watching to see if this is law is enforced. Just as importantly, I'll be watching to see if the city and the TDC keep up their end of the deal and keep the PUBLIC beaches clean at all times. That's only fair, right?

I would love any volunteers who regularly walk the beach to submit photos to this blog, documenting the success or failure of this new effort. Let me know if you would like to participate.

Read about the new laws and the process behind it at http://pcbdaily.com/?p=3840 and at http://www.newsherald.com/news/beach_72928___article.html/trash_city.html

Ideas Abound; Solutions Do Not

I went out to the beach last week to hand out trash bags. As the alternative break students observed last week, and I stated in 2006, and other students suggested in 2008, and the TDC says they're "investigating" in 2009, the idea of providing trash bags to visitors on the beach is a pretty common-sense approach to keeping the beach clean.

Other ideas are in the papers, on the news and in blogs: Put out recycle bins. Make law-breakers clean it up as community service. Enforce the litter laws to begin with. Fine businesses who do not follow code on their beach.

All these ideas are fine, but none are being executed. Just "investigated."

While I applaud the TDC's decision to emphasize clean beaches as a part of their strategic plan, they have not come close to acting on real, preventative solutions. Nor have they considered improving the method of how they clean the beaches now.

The current process includes running tractors and surf rakes up and down the beach. It costs $700K per year now, and that's not enough money to do it properly this way.

If you're going to "groom" the beaches once a week, that means 6 days of the week during peak seasons will have too much litter in the most popular public spaces.

"Grooming" the beach also has proven to bury the top layer of fine sand, and till up the coarser sand. What's more, the surf rake buries glass bottles instead of raking them up.

And here's a fun question for bed tax collectors: Why are you about to spend millions of dollars to retrofit "turtle-friendly" lighting while these John Deere tractors will be racing up and down your beaches, surely crushing any little turtle eggs under the sand?

A Spring Breaker's Report

(Submitted by Kevin D. McKenna, MTU Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate)

Some of these photos demonstrate that some of the companies with stands are not only responsible for some of the mess, but some are relying solely upon the blue barrels for their operations.

Monster was handing out free drinks, and the empty cases piled up. Star Trek the Movie was giving out tens of dozens of pizzas by the slice. All the plates went somewhere.

The floor in front of the lil Wayne concert was gross. The picture attached is actually probably the cleanest section but I included that photo because of the glass.

(Jason, Sten and Kevin - Michigan Tech Alternative Spring Breakers 2009)

These students used the free trash bags provided by GetAwaytotheGulf.com to keep their area of the beach clean!

Live from Panama City Beach - Michigan Tech ABS

Evie hands out a bag to a breaker

Ten of us left Michigan Tech at 7:15 a.m. Saturday, March 7, 2009. We drove all day and through the night to arrive at the Royal American Hospitality at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. The trip was thankfully relatively uneventful except for a lot of male bonding in the back seat…. STEN!

Sunday was spent recovering and researching the situation on the beach. We were all impressed with the gorgeous weather and fine quartz sand that made up the beach. The water was beautiful but a little too cold for some members of the team.

Monday we kicked of the day with a trip to the local state park, St. Andrews. There, we were introduced to the natural state of the beach and were informed on the diverse ecosystem that thrives in a clean environment. Next we headed to the spring break zone and began our work.

We handed out garbage bags and talked to the spring breakers and locals. We were pleasantly surprised to find the most common response of the students to be “thank you,” “dude, that would be so key,” and “yeah, dude, that s***’s legit.” When asking for suggestions we got such responses as, “more trash bins closer to the water” and “people will recycle and throw away their trash if it is convenient for them.”

Tuesday we started our day early with a visit to the Tourism Development Committee’s meeting. By chance, one of their main focuses was the garbage situation on the beach. Briana addressed the committee and told them what we had discovered from our two days on the beach. We recommended using preventative measures such as providing bags at beach entrances and adding signage to pressure tourists and locals to keep the beach clean. The committee was very receptive and very appreciative of our efforts at the beach.

After the meeting and a quick lunch in the van, we hit the beach for a second day of handing out bags. Groups remembered us from the day before, asking for bags and making comments such as, “We’ve been waiting for you.” It was awesome to see groups taking the time after we handed them a bag to clean up their area.

Our experience so far has been wonderful. The facilities where we are staying have been more than adequate. We have access to a kitchen, internet, laundry, pool, pier, and volleyball court. The groundskeeper, Michael, has been more than accommodating and is always willing to help us out and make us feel welcome.

A helpful spring breaker in Panama City Beach, FL

Alternative Breakers Present Ideas to Bay County TDC

Briana Drake, the leader of the alternative spring break group from Michigan Tech, stood before the TDC Board of Directors Tuesday to present the students' ideas for keeping the beach clean.

By handing out trash bags to fellow students, our breakers discovered other students were welcoming to the idea and thankful for the trash bags. The students expressed that better preventive solutions could be implemented and that a majority of beach visitors would participate in keeping Panama City Beach clean.

Way to go Briana and the rest of the students from Michigan Tech!

They're Here to Work!

Some Spring Breakers are here to play, these 10 students from Michigan Tech are here to work!

If you see these alternative breakers on the beach passing out trash bags and encouraging fellow spring breakers to keep the beach clean, please welcome them!

What a Trek for Michigan Tech

Michigan Technological University students will drive almost 24 hours to visit Panama City Beach during Spring Break 2009 to help Keep the Beach Clean.

Anyone interested in joining in and working with these students, please contact me!

Thanks again to GetAwaytotheGulf.com and the Panama Cafe for their support of this project. It is not too late for other corporate or individual support!

Alternative Spring Break 2009

Thanks to Royal American Hospitality, we're housing alternative spring breakers again this year. And thanks to last year's participants, we have a better approach this year: prevention instead of cure. Our students will not be picking up trash. They will be handing out trash bags to fellow Spring Breakers, encouraging them to bag all their litter before it hits the sand or the water.

Stay tuned here for daily reports, starting in March!

The World's Most Beautiful Beaches!

This is, by far, the best place on earth on a September day like this one...

International Coastal Cleanup Day - This Saturday

Thanks to this online Newsherald Article, I know that I won't be able to sleep in this Saturday. Hope you'll join me.

Free Trip to Paradise this Saturday

Just meet us down on the beach at Pier Park this Saturday at 9 AM. For two solid hours, you'll be able to walk the world's most beautiful beaches, enjoying a true paradise on earth. Along the way, we'll pick up trash, but that will just enhance your experience. Organized by Bay Families with Dogs... let's go help!

Results of Alternative Spring Break Cleanup

LSU student volunteers did a great job last week. Their immediate ideas were the same as the previous schools'... more cans, more bags, more recycle bins. Don't allow vendors on the sand to hand out anything that will become trash on the beach. You know, more common-sense stuff you'd hope to hear from today's brightest young minds.

Antoine, one of the volunteers who looked like a lineman on the Tiger's National Championship D, came up with a fun idea: have a contest to see which school can turn in the most cans. Give those guys something to win, and you might have a fun way to keep the beach clean.

Regardless of all the ideas, most of us realized it will be much easier to prevent litter than to clean it up.

This is just the beginning... these students proved that there are such things as great spring breakers, and I believe they will continue to play a part in helping Bay County find better ways to preserve our most valuable asset.

Welcome LSU!

A smaller group than last week in numbers, but equally big in desire to help keep the beach clean! Stay tuned for LSU's progress and ideas to clean up the trash!