As the 2024 marine debris cleanup winds down, the staff and board at Takshanuk Watershed Council would like to express our deepest gratitude to the 64 volunteers who have helped clean up our local beaches. So far we have collected over 1,800 pounds of trash from 4 beaches in the Haines Borough and we still have 3 more beaches to go! That is a remarkable amount of trash and it is mostly food wrappers, plastic bottles, and plastic bags.
This huge effort to educate the community about marine debris and to activate volunteers to get out there and clean the beaches would not be possible without our amazing partnering organizations. Thank you Chilkoot Indian Association’s Jake Bell and Liam Wirak-Cassidy for providing boat support and for hauling trash. Thank you Community Waste Solutions for accepting the trash and waiving the fee. Thank you Haines Friends of Recycling,especially Kate Saunders, for helping sort plastics and recycling from the trash and collecting the plastics for a future plastic upcycling project. The biggest thank you goes out to all the volunteers who share their boats, spend hours on the beach collecting and documenting the trash, and help haul all that garbage from the boats to the dump truck. This project would not be possible without you!
Tracy Wirak-Cassidy