How many cigarette butts collected in one hour at beach cleanup?

Had some *help* this morning picking up littered cigarette butts at the Lauderdale by the Sea monthly beach cleanup. A beachgoer walked by with his family, pointed with his toe, and said, "there's one."

A number of local residents and volunteers gathered at 9am and headed up and down the beach armed with gloves and trash bags.

I concentrate on picking up every cigarette butt between this pavillion and the sea grass. The butts are not as obvious as larger pieces of litter and remain mostly invisible3 to the eye. Most beach cleanups don't even pick up cigarette butts or count them in their tally. There is a good reason for that. There are so many butts, once you bend over to pick one up you see another and another and another. You'd walk the whole beach bent over. I work on a small area at a time and get that area completely cleaned. At last month's clean up I cleared this area of every single visable butt. Care to guess how many cigarette butts I picked up today, one month later? (Answer below.) 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In one hour, I picked up 529 littered cigarette butts, one cigar, broken wine glass, 2 metal bottle caps and lots of bits of plastic. Just so you know there were even more butts. These are only the ones I collected and counted. I saw other volunteers pick up some as they were walking to the shore to pick up other litter.