Butts on the Beach

Bethany Barber

No ifs, ands or buts about it - cigarette butts take the prize as the No. 1 littered item on New Jersey's beaches.

Out of the total 50,000 pounds of mixed garbage collected during two beach sweeps last year, about 27,000 cigarette butts were gathered, followed by 16,000 plastic food bags, 13,000 plastic pieces and 11,000 plastic caps and lids, according to the volunteer group Clean Ocean Action, Highlands, N.J. Plastic was nearly 60 percent of the total waste collected.

Several interesting items also were found during the beach sweeps, including one shower door, 22 pacifiers, two pregnancy tests, 62 shotgun shells and three toilet seats.

Source: States News Service

Garbage Points To Problem Responding to complaints of trash strewn around a fishing shack, police arrested three men in a Minnesota drug-making ring.

The men, ages 18 to 21, were arrested in Waverly, Minn., for using the fishing shack as a methamphetamine lab.

Source: Associated Press

Beer Bottle Ban on Everest If you want to buy a brew in Nepal, chances are it'll come in a can.

According to a recent Nepalese law, beverages can't be sold in glass bottles in the Mount Everest region due to the overwhelming amount that are littered on the mountain.

An estimated 200,000 beer and other beverage bottles are left behind by Everest's 30,000 visitors each year.

Climbers have long complained that glass bottles are too expensive to haul to recycle for the mere 4 cents offered per bottle.

Source: Associated Press

Garbage Justice It's payback time for Joseph Hazelwood. The former Exxon Valdez skipper will begin serving his 1,000-hour community service sentence received in 1990.

Hazelwood, who was convicted of negligent discharge of oil from the 1989 11-million-gallon spill in Prince William Sound, has been ordered to spend one month each summer for the next five years in Alaska removing trash and litter from the highways and parks.

Source: States News Service