2,000 volunteers clean Rhode Island’s coastline

Save The Bay recruited more than 2,000 volunteers to spruce up the shores of 80 Rhode Island beaches during the 29th International Coastal Cleanup last month.
More than a dozen local businesses also joined in to help pick up trash and record findings for the Ocean Conservancy.
The Washington Trust Co. was among the participating businesses and it has played a big part in organizing manicures for Rhode Island’s coast for the past two decades.
Other businesses that organized shoreline cleanups include Amtrol, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, Citizens Bank, Dupont, Denali, National Grid and Schneider Electric.
Volunteers typically remove about 20,000 pounds of trash and debris from the Ocean State’s coastline each year, according to Save The Bay.
According to the Ocean Conservancy, the international cleanup as a whole has accumulated more than 175 million pounds of trash along 340,000 miles of shoreline since it began three decades ago. This includes more than 10 million plastic bags, which could produce enough oil to drive a car around the Earth 18 times. •

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