Car battery, burnt flag, and more wild things found on NJ beaches

🔵 Metal beverage cans moved up the list of the most commonly found items

🔵 Plastic is still king of the collected trash

🔵 Another "beach sweep" is scheduled for April 13

A loveseat couch, a full-length mirror, patio cushions, a toilet seat.

Sounds like a shopping list for a furniture outlet, but it's really just a sample of the things you may find on a New Jersey beach on any given day.

Clean Ocean Action, a nonprofit based in Long Branch, has released the results of their two Beach Sweeps events in 2023.

Even though both events in April and October were impacted by inclement weather — resulting in a 60% fewer volunteers — people still managed to gather more than 176,000 pieces of debris from 75 locations.

Plastic bottle caps and lids came in as the most commonly collected items in 2023: 23,788 across the two events. Food and candy wrappers/bags came in second, and plastic pieces were third.

Volunteers found more than 11,500 cigarette butts.

For the first time since 2003, metal beverage cans appeared on the group's "dirty dozen" list of the most commonly found items.

NJ's plastic ban

Plastic bags have been absent from the list in Clean Ocean Action's yearly reports since New Jersey enacted a ban on single-use bags at stores.

In 2023, there were 0.63 plastic shopping bags collected per volunteer during the Beach Sweeps events. The rate was 0.72 bags per volunteer in 2022.

New Jersey law also mandates that restaurants only give plastic straws to customers upon request, but straws and stirrers were the fifth-most found item in 2023, and the rate per volunteer essentially didn't move since 2022.

SEE ALSO: Huge job fair announced for Monmouth County

Roster of the ridiculous

Hundreds of items make up Clean Ocean Action's "Roster of the Ridiculous" for 2023. Among the wackiest finds:

⚫ "Danger High Voltage" metal sign

⚫ Car battery

⚫ Toilet seat

⚫ Burnt flag

⚫ Broken fence

⚫ Sprinkler head

⚫ Trex decking

⚫ Bottle of urine

⚫ Basketball hoop

⚫ Voodoo doll

⚫ Whoopee cushion

Help clean NJ's beaches

Clean Ocean Action is looking for volunteers to help out with their next Beach Sweep event, scheduled for Saturday, April 13 — rain or shine. Help is needed from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The sweep is occurring at more than 80 locations in New Jersey.

Use this page to register for the event. Clean Ocean Action wants volunteers to bring their own bucket and work gloves.

Report a correction 👈 | 👉 Contact our newsroom