Received via email 11.13.23:
Good morning Mayor and Town Council members, Diane Buhler here via email.
We have had very busy months out on the beach since I last appeared at Public Comments. In this time, King tides have become a reality and every year, these tides bring their own added issues of debris on the beach.
The marine debris and plastics are coming in by the droves and landing much further to the west on the beaches that have a ‘west’ to land on. Adding to this King Tide phenomenon, the strong seas of late have created a ferocious ocean that breaks up debris into smaller and smaller pieces of trash.
Microplastics are a new norm that make our battle of marine debris collection so much harder to combat. What was once a plastic beverage bottle or laundry jug or any whole form of plastic item, is now in its next stages of degradation by photodegradation, the sun and the sea breaking down this material into smaller and smaller pieces, called microplastics. These pieces are 2 inches down to mere centimeters in size and are becoming so much more prolific in our world. What isn’t collected is adding to the composition of our beach sand, an unhealthy mix of plastics and sand exists.
This past Saturday I hosted a beach clean up with St. Ann’s Catholic School. We collected a total of 115 pounds of beach debris in the form of plastics and microplastics.
My crew, in just 3 days last week, collected 1,633 pieces of microplastics.
My point in regularly telling you of this miserable state of the beach and the ocean here is to help combat this issue and keep your beach paradise as natural and healthy as possible. Keeping our beaches clean and healthy extends to our own health.
One proven solution is our cleaning of 7.5 miles of Palm Beach’s beaches each week. Our hand-picked collection stops this trash in its tracks.
Another solution is the beach bucket stands that have proven successful. The bucket stands that you approved and we installed are making a difference with beachgoer use and their collection and correct disposal of this incoming marine debris.
This type of collection, meticulous hand picking is the only, truly successful and positively impactful way to clean a beach.
I’d be remiss in my own conviction if I didn’t remind you of the problems and inefficiencies I notice of mechanical tractor raking. The tractor adds to the creation of these microplastics by driving over marine debris and crushing and creating more debris. This may not be intentional but it is a byproduct of the tractor’s process to get to its hired beach. These crushed items, this collateral damage, exists all along the beach in its wake.
Anyone who approaches a raked beach can immediately see the trash within the sand fluff. And, that compacted and compressed fluffed sand is the first to wash away, more quickly than a beach that isn’t raked and nature has created a solid layer of seaweed and sand as its meant to.
This year’s sargassum influx didn’t become a reality, yet the tractor traversed even at the north end by the jetty.
As a solution, I urge you to educate your residents of the existing bucket stands to use. I recently wrote a Beach Bucket piece for the Citizens Association and am hopeful there will be stands installed.
I have offered to talk to any condo’s maintenance team on how they can stay on top of this incoming debris.
The main complaint I hear is that this hand-picking process is labor intensive and expensive thus it is never implemented and no solutions but antiquated, destructive ones are used.
I can show and prove there is a better way.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.
(I timed it, its just under 3 minutes) Thank you!
Make it a great day, Diane
Diane Buhler
Founder/President
Friends of Palm Beach
A 501c3 non-profit organization
PO Box 3014, Palm Beach, FL 33480