March Beach / Hooksett Disc Cleanup

As many of you are well aware, the Hooksett wastewater treatment facility mistakenly released 4-8 million small plastic circular mesh discs and they have been making their way up and down the New England coastline. Besides being a general land-based pollutant and potential receptacles for bacteria, they are also choking hazards for much of the marine wildlife.

Over the past two weeks, there have been many efforts along NH and MA beaches to clean up these discs. Yesterday, we went out to the northern end of Jenness to do our part. We picked up 85 lbs of general trash and about 35-40 discs. As it turns out, the mesh discs pick up sand, which tends to make them, well, sand-colored. They get trapped in seaweed, buried in the sand, and are extremely difficult to see when you are looking for them. We found numerous chewed up discs (some alongside 2 dead birds). In other words, not great. I know a lot of you folks walk along the beach, so if you come across these, please help to pick them up and clean up the beaches.

One another note, the semi-blizzard when we were out in the water made for a pretty dreamy session in the afternoon.

-Connie