TAMPA, Fla. — As Earth Day celebrations get underway, Port Tampa Bay, Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful, and the Propeller Club joined forces to clean up around the Bay area.
"There was a lot of trash just hidden everywhere," Chris Kukla, a volunteer picking up trash said. "There was a grill and the tire."
Before the cleanup began, McKay Bay Nature Park, Desoto Park, and Davis Island Boat Ramp & Seaplane Basin were covered in trash. Single-use water bottles, grocery bags, styrofoam, and other items were tangled deep in the mangroves.
"This is important to me because of the environment, the animals, this all affects them-- the microplastics in the ground and in the water," Cindy Zayas, a volunteer, said.
An estimated 600+ volunteers are lending a helping hand to make this clean-up possible. In a matter of hours, tens of thousands of pounds of trash will be removed. In 2022, 36,000 pounds of trash were removed during the Great Port Cleanup.
"It's crazy the things that we are picking up," volunteer Chrissie Peirana said. "I picked up a tire, we picked a blanket, just the water bottles... I just think everybody should have an opportunity to come and do this and see how much garbage Tampa Bay really has."
In this year's cleanup, Port Tampa Bay is hoping the additional volunteers mean even more trash will be removed.
"You know, these plastics and styrofoam... They break down into microplastics and microbeads, those end up being consumed by fish, manatees, dolphins, and they can those toxins can make their way up the food chain," Chris Cooley, the director of environmental affairs for Port Tampa Bay, said.
All three clean-up sites are located near Port Tampa Bay.
"...The wetlands are doing their jobs, the mangroves are helping to clean the waters," Cooley said. "They're helping to stabilize our shoreline. We just need to go in and help them out a little bit, you know, several times a year."
This year's clean-up is the third annual. And each year the event is held, it's grown. Port Tampa Bay expects to have the total number of pounds of trash removed in the next few days.
Malique Rankin is a general assignment reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. You can email her story ideas at mrankin@10tampabay.com and follow her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.