Sands Point Preserve installs cleanup station to fight litter
Xiao Xing, of Queens, uses a newly installed cleanup station at Sands Point Preserve on July 3. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
Sands Point Preserve is enlisting the help of beachgoers to keep its beachfront free of litter with a cleanup station.
On June 20, Sands Point Preserve Conservancy, the nonprofit that maintains and operates the 216-acre preserve, installed a self-service cleanup station on its roughly 1-mile-long beach. Another nonprofit, Transition Town Port Washington, and Schreiber High School’s Treehuggers group helped secure funding for the project.
“We have so many people who cherish this place,” said Jeremiah Bosgang, executive director of Sands Point Preserve.
He said people have inquired about picking up debris on the beach, but were loath to do so without the proper tools. The setup at Sands Point includes four reusable baskets, four trash pickers with magnetized tips and two trash cans.
"You’re not actually having to touch anything," Bosgang said. "You can do as much or as little as you want."
The station was created by Relic Design, a Quogue-based apparel company that seeks to protect Long Island's oceans through the beach stations as well as the sale of clothes. For every item sold, it restores 30 oysters into the bay to help filter the water.
The company has installed more than 80 stations on beaches across Long Island, including in Smithtown.
Instead of waiting for scheduled beach cleanups, visitors can jump in on the action.
“If you’re walking along the beach, and you see plastic bottles or straws or other debris, you might have the impulse to pick it up, but you don’t want to touch stuff, it’s dirty,” Bosgang said. “The thinking was if we just give people these tools, and you can just pick up one of these yellow baskets, and you can use one of these picker-uppers ... And you can do as much or as little as you want.”
He said Margaret Galbraith, president of Transition Town's board of directors, and Isaac Graubard, president of Schreiber's Treehuggers club, approached him about setting up a station. The groups, as well as the Sands Points Preserve, raised $650 for the station and installation, Bosgang said.
Heather Simon Clark, a member of Transition Town’s board, said she hopes the Sands Point station can be a model for beaches around the area. The success of the project will be measured in the cleanliness of the beachfront and the condition of the materials, she said.
Clark said cleaning up the beach is especially important because plastics in the water get broken down into smaller pieces and are eaten by fish, which are then consumed by humans — and plastics in the human body can lead to various health problems.
The self-serve stations can help disrupt that cycle, Clark said.
“It starts with us,” she said.
Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.
A taste of summer on Long Island NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday food writer Marie Elena Martinez take a look at the hottest places to dine on Long Island this summer.
A taste of summer on Long Island NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday food writer Marie Elena Martinez take a look at the hottest places to dine on Long Island this summer.