New beach toy boxes aim to reduce plastic waste at Virginia Beach Oceanfront
VIRGINIA BEACH — If you’re heading to the Oceanfront this Memorial Day weekend, you may notice new colorfully decorated wooden boxes filled with beach toys near several beach entrances. It’s a new program to cut down on plastic waste and a way to recycle buckets and shovels for others to enjoy.
Several local environmental nonprofits partnered to launch the beach toy recycling stations in the resort area Friday.
Four toy boxes labeled “Leave a Toy or Take a Toy” have been placed at beach entry points at 7th, 17th, 24th and 31st streets. Beachgoers can leave gently used, unwanted beach toys for others — or they can take a few.
Lynnhaven River Now volunteer Mike Lavery constructed the boxes, and Seatack and Cooke elementary school students painted them. The one at 24th Street is covered with the students’ handprints and the words, “It takes many hands to keep it beachy clean!”
Soon after volunteers placed the box with some starter toys in it near the Boardwalk rail at 24th Street Friday afternoon, 8-year-old Kori Alleyne of Pennsylvania lifted the lid and pulled out a pink shovel.
“Hopefully other kids will see the artwork, and it will draw their attention,” said Laura Traylor of Tidewater Master Naturalists, one of the groups that provided funding for the project, which cost roughly $600 for the material, paint and signs. The pressure-treated cedar boxes are 3 feet long, 3 feet wide and 25 inches tall.
Toys left on the beach contribute to plastic pollution in the ocean, which is harmful to wildlife. If the program is successful, more boxes could be added, said Mike Mauch, chair of the Resort Advisory Commission’s former Green Committee, which started planning the beach toy box concept four years ago.
The Virginia Beach Lifesaving Service, Virginia Beach Ambassadors Program, Keep it Beachy Clean and Lynnhaven River Now also participated in the project.
“It took strong community partners with the willingness to go out there and do it,” said Mauch. “It’s going to keep a lot of the plastics out of our ocean.”
Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com
