More condoms, fewer cigarettes found in annual beach cleanup

SANDY HOOK, N.J. (AP) — Volunteers cleaning up New Jersey beaches last year found everything but the kitchen sink. Oh wait, they found one of those, too.

Nearly 82 percent of the trash removed during Clean Ocean Action’s beach sweeps last spring and fall was plastic. The number of condoms and baby diapers found rose from a year earlier. But the number of cigarette butts picked up was down by nearly a quarter.

More than 10,000 volunteers plucked 454,365 pieces of debris from the ocean coast, bay shores and the banks of rivers, lakes and streams as part of the annual survey by the coastal environmental group that tallies the garbage left behind on the state’s beaches.

Some items they picked up included a shoe with a bottle of hot sauce inside it, a large lump of coal and the door to a safe.

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