Volunteers clean up Fort De Soto after Independence Day celebrations

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla., (WFLA) — Several Independence Day celebrations happened across the Tampa Bay area for the Fourth of July, but not everyone picks up their trash.

Several volunteers spent their Saturday morning cleaning up Fort De Soto Park and beach in Pinellas County.

The volunteers said what they collected the most is food wrappers, glass bottles, cigarette butts, and a lot of plastic.

“It’s something you don’t necessarily think about, volunteering and going and cleaning up the beach. You think of Florida and the beaches and going and visiting them,” volunteer Abigail Conley said.

Keep Pinellas Beautiful put on the trash collecting event so the beaches could be cleaned up after the holiday celebrations ended.

“We just want to make sure that everything is picked up afterwards and we keep the beaches and the nature parts of Pinellas County pristine,” said Mary Grace Vigrass, Project Assistant with Keep Pinellas Beautiful.

Around 30 people joined to help protect the environment.

“Just thought it would be a great opportunity to come out, especially to see the beach since it’s so beautiful out here, but I’ve also noticed every time we come out to places like this, there’s just tons of stuff around everywhere,” said Brad Bowers, who volunteered.

“If you see all the people out on the beach on a Saturday morning and they’re just enjoying it, we’re enjoying it too, but we’re picking up trash,” Conley said.

According to organizers, they had quite the busy morning.

“A lot of trash, we see a lot of fireworks that have been left over from the Fourth of July,” Vigrass said.

Mary Grace Vigrass with Keep Pinellas Beautiful said they have been seeing an increase in trash with the influx of people moving to the county, and all the visitors.

“We have seen much more than usual, especially after holidays that’s usually the case,” she said.

They weighed each bag of trash that was collected Saturday morning.

“After its collected, we will weigh the trash, individually, each bag and put it down for data purposes,” Vigrass said.

Everyone doing their part to help protect the waters and the wildlife.

“All the nature out here is absolutely gorgeous and that’s what they’re living in. Those birds pick stuff up, they eat it, it kills them. I mean, so if that’s not going to convince you to come out here, I don’t really know what will,” said Bowers.

Vigrass said on any given day they can collect anywhere from 20 to 300 pounds, and they always anticipate collecting even more after a holiday.

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