CANAVERAL NATIONAL SEASHORE, Fla. – It is considered by many visitors to be one of the state’s most pristine beaches. But on Saturday morning, the sandy shores of Playalinda Beach was instead the site of the trash-strewn remnants of a daylong party held by area teens to celebrate being out of school for the day, according to News 6 partner Florida Today.
“What happened was no one was picking up the trash or telling anyone to pick it up,” said Preston Mizell, the student body president of Astronaut High School who banded together with local teens from the National Honor Society to clean up a long stretch of the beach.
The north Brevard beach is part of Canaveral National Seashore and is staffed by National Park Service rangers.
“It was a planned event. Kids have been going out there for years. School was out on Friday and it was the first warm day we’ve had in a while so (students) went out,” adding that there were students from Titusville and as far as Rockledge who turned out for the gathering.
The informal party was promoted heavily in social media.
But by Saturday, a photo of the trash left behind also made the rounds, prompting the cleanup.
Several youth saw the photos and decided to head back out to the beach for a cleanup, said Mizell. Volunteers found folding chairs, empty alcohol bottles, food wrappers and even an old newspaper article about a 2011 soccer game, Mizell said.
“We picked up trash from pier 1 to pier 6 before we had to turn around,” he said. “A lot of it has been picked up.”