TAMPA, Fla. — The Gasparilla invasion has come and gone, but there's no doubt there are still plenty of pirates with a batch full of beads.
If your treasure chest is getting too full to hold them all, The Florida Aquarium is reminding you about the deadline to donate your unwanted beads to their location by Sunday, Feb. 11.
This is being done as part of Tampa's Bead-Free Bay Initiative to protect our area's marine ecosystem, as beads can be dangerous to wildlife. Throwing beads into the bay is also illegal per the Florida Litter Law.
“The Florida Aquarium is committed to reducing plastic pollution, and the beads that are so synonymous with this celebration often find their way into our waterways where they can be ingested by, and harm, wildlife,” Dr. Debborah Luke, Senior Vice President of Conservation at The Florida Aquarium, said in a statement. “These beads, like all other plastics, break down into microplastics which never decompose and remain present in the ecosystem for hundreds of years.”
All donations to the aquarium are going to be donated to the MacDonald Training Center, a nonprofit organization that helps adults with disabilities prepare for the workforce. Workers will sanitize and repackage the beads for reuse for future celebrations and support the center’s career and education programs.
There's also a sweet perk in it for anyone who donates beads as well. For every five-gallon bucket of beads dropped off at the Aquarium, you can get half off an adult ticket to the Aquarium.