On June 16th the Wells Insurance volunteer team joined forces with the local nonprofit Plastic Ocean Project to help clean up a portion of Hwy 421 which parallels and inevitably flows trash straight into the Cape Fear River and into the ocean.
This is a major corridor for industrial traffic and daily commuters. It’s also the main artery for trash trucks on their way to the landfill. If you’ve driven behind one of these trucks, you have most likely seen unintended and unsecured debris flying out the back.
That and much more ends up on the sides of our highways and eventually, what’s worse, in our rivers and our oceans.
In two hours we picked up endless pieces of plastic and styrofoam, plastic tubs, bags, construction debris, nails, old signs, a traffic cone, cable insulation, plywood and lumber. It’s awful to see how much garbage was just sitting there, much of it just inches from entering marshland and the Cape Fear River. 46,000 pieces of plastic trash float in every square mile of ocean. In some ways it felt like “how can we even make a dent in this problem?”
The Wells team and POP volunteers collected 429 pounds of trash, and our efforts will mean that 17 trees will get planted as part of the Trees 4 Trash project.
That’s what Plastic Ocean Project is trying to accomplish by doing much more than just beach and highway cleanups.
