The surprising things washing up on P.E.I.’s beaches

Students from across P.E.I. are coming together for a yearly beach cleanup to protect local ecosystems. Maria Sarrouh reports.

PLACELINE – Student crews are combing P.E.I.’s coastlines this summer, hauling away whatever items storms, tides and people have left behind.

It’s part of the province’s Cleaning Our Shoreline initiative, launched in 2020. Program manager Evan Herbert said three teams, each with at least four people, fan out across the Island every year.

They find “a little bit of everything,” Herbert said, from household garbage and Styrofoam to scrap metal.

“It’s very impactful,” he said. “I feel like I’m doing my part in keeping our habitats and different species around P.E.I. protected.”

Many of those hired are students attending high school, college or university, ranging in age from their mid-teens to mid-20s.

On a sunny day last week, 19-year-old Keldan Irving was working with the Kings County team at Greenwich Beach, collecting waste along the water.

Irving, an environmental studies student at the University of Prince Edward Island, said the work puts what he learns in class into practice.

“It just gives me some hands-on experience,” Irving said. “I get to see everything first-hand and, well, it just gives me a new perspective.”

Greenwich, the easternmost section of P.E.I. National Park, is home to the Island’s largest sand dunes. The area is rich in natural history, with coastal habitat that supports rare plants and wildlife.

Among them is the endangered piping plover, a migratory shorebird protected under federal law.

“Keeping that debris out of their habitat and out of their way is important,” Herbert said.

P.E.I.’s famous beaches are also a major draw for tourists.

Irving said garbage affects him as an Islander, but can also shape visitors’ impressions of the province.

“It reflects negatively upon us if there’s a lot of garbage or whatever on the beach,” he said.

Residents and tourists can help preserve P.E.I.’s marine ecosystems by reporting debris they find along shorelines, estuaries, ponds and lakes through the province’s online form or by phone.