They want litter to take a long walk off a short pier.
Volunteers pulled two dumpsters’ worth of trash from the shoreline around Canarsie Pier during a cleanup on March 5. The once-peerless jetty has gotten grimy in recent years, but one do-gooder said he was glad folks are trying to return it to its former glory.
“I grew up in Canarsie, so I remember back in the day, it was cleaner — we used to actually go to the beach over there,” said Verne Sylvestre, 30, who now lives in Mill Basin. “Seeing it now as a mess in the state it was in, it’s good to see that there are people cleaning it up to get it back to what it used to be.”
More than 70 locals, members of community service group AmeriCorps, and National Park Service volunteers spent four hours at the Federally run-pier, removing the many pieces of foam, plastic, and glass that threaten the area’s wildlife and make the pier less enjoyable for recreationists, said one of the day’s planners.
“We chose Canarsie Pier because a lot of people use this beach, people love it, but it’s kind of messy,” said Emily Kimmelman of AmeriCorps. “It felt good to have the event come to fruition, because it took a lot of planning.”
The clean-up was the first of the season. It made a difference, there is still more to be done, another volunteer said.
“They really made a dent in it,” said Keith White of the National Parks Service, who hopes to host more clean-ups before the pier opens for the summer.
