John Pennekamp Mangrove cleanup
Ocean Forest, Key Largo is a restoration area of John Pennekamp State Park. It is an undeveloped area that includes mangroves, coral reefs, and a large array of wildlife. Due to a vast amount of pollution that has accumulated in the mangrove forest, the trash is smothering and killing many of the trees.
The Sustainability Initiative planned a John Pennekamp Mangrove Cleanup Saturday November 13th, 2021. Over a few hours, we collected 840lb of trash. Plastic was the most commonly found material; bottles, bottle caps, and shoe soles the most commonly found plastic items.
We teamed up with CoastLove for our second John Pennekamp Mangrove Cleanup February 26, 2022 to help remove over 1500 pounds of trash! Some breakdowns of the most commonly found items:
Bottle caps = 947 / 5.5 pounds
Plastic bottles = 941 / 102.5 pounds
Plastic cutlery = 31
Straws = 2 (Florida Keys has banned plastic straws -> policy change makes changes!)
