A coalition of Long Island environmental organizations, including Freeport’s Operation SPLASH, recently launched its “Keep Long Island Beautiful” initiative during “America’s 250th Birthday Ball Drop” celebration at the Long Island Children’s Museum.
The initiative seeks to provide Long Island residents with means to participate in their own local cleanups, while encouraging them to join larger volunteer efforts with marine conservation groups like Operation SPLASH.
Robert Weltner, Operation SPLASH president, said the organization has already been able to make several meaningful contributions to marine conservation, thanks to the help of its 250 volunteers and more than 4,000 sponsoring members. Operation SPLASH volunteers have reportedly removed more than 3.5 million pounds of debris from Long Island’s South Shore since 1990.
“We cover about 34 miles of coastline, and over 54,000 acres of wetlands, marshes and beaches with our eight boats,” Weltner said. “We’re out there every day, so we have a very good finger on the pulse as to what kind of debris we’re seeing.”
“Thousands of bottle caps” from litterers are some of the most common types of debris Weltner and Operation SPLASH volunteers find along the southern shore of Long Island, he added.
He also stressed the danger of this kind of pollution, stating that animals often mistake such small pieces of plastic as food, which can harm or even kill them when they try to swallow the debris.
30 DIY cleanup kits were supplied to Suffolk County public libraries, with more available for request, so that residents can initiate their own smaller scale cleanups in their communities, in a bid to further support the efforts of Operation SPLASH and other conservation organizations based in Wantagh, Bellmore, Merrick, Massapequa, East Rockaway and other Long Island communities. The kits, which were made available on July 1, contain litter grabbers, yellow safety vests, gloves, trash bags and additional resources.
“We wanted to make environmental stewardship feel genuinely accessible and something any resident, family or student could do on a Tuesday afternoon without needing to sign up for anything,” said Maureen Early, lead community relations specialist at waste management company Reworld. “The library kit pilot program is about removing every barrier between a Long Islander and the simple act of making their community cleaner.”
The “Keep Long Island Beautiful” initiative is organized by a steering committee that includes Reworld and other conservation organizations, including Balloon Mission, Save the Great South Bay and the Long Island South Shore Waterkeeper. The launch of the campaign in July was intentionally timed to coincide with the celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary of its independence, seeking to unify existing environmental stewardship efforts across Long Island under a streamlined network.
“There’s so much good work happening on Long Island, and this campaign brings it all together,” Merrick resident Cynthia Seibold, founder of Balloon Mission, stated. “By giving people simple tools and opportunities to participate, whether through organized cleanups and restoration projects, or DIY in their own neighborhoods, we’re empowering each person to appreciate and preserve our Long Island.”
Asked how he would like Freeport and Long Island residents to further support local conservation efforts, Weltner said that people need to be aware that littering on land has a tremendous impact on the waste that is later found in the water.
“Our hardest part is getting people on Long Island to understand they live on an island, and any street trash will eventually become bay trash, ocean trash or Long Island Sound trash once it goes down a storm drain,” he said. “All the storm drains lead to water, and that’s the biggest deposit of trash out in the water.”
To join Operation SPLASH or any other beautification and clean-up efforts, residents and visitors can go to beautifyli.org/about to view the calendar of environmental events that will be held across Long Island.
Weltner and his fellow Long Island conservationists said they hope that enough of their neighbors continue to fight local pollution and littering on land and in the water to “put them out of business” permanently, securing a truly beautiful Long Island.
