Over 45,000 pieces of trash picked up from Little Compton’s shoreline in the last 12 years by clean-up crusader, Geoff Dennis
The photos above are a visual record of some of the trash picked up by Geoff Dennis in a single year.
The story of Geoff Dennis
One Person Litter Patrol of the Sakonnet Coastline
For two decades, Geoff Dennis has been a one-man cleanup crew for the Little Compton, R.I. shoreline. What began as the act of picking up the trash while walking his dog along Goosewing Beach in 2004, was in fact the beginning of a remarkable story of commitment to clearing the beaches and adjacent islands of Little Compton. In 2012 he began documenting this journey.
Geoff is a quahogger by trade, a passionate birder, photographer, and lecturer on the birds of Little Compton, a devoted husband and dog owner, and a litter collector. Somehow, Geoff finds the time to walk the beaches of his hometown filling garbage bags with beach trash. At the end of these walks, he loads his truck, offloads all of it into his backyard, and then sorts, counts, and photographs the collected litter. Finally, Geoff takes what can be recycled to the appropriate recycling centers, but too much ends up in a landfill.
The volume and variety of trash that Geoff picks up is astounding: plastic bottles, Styrofoam cups, cigarette butts, mylar balloons, all sorts of commercial fishing gear, tires, plastic bags, spent plastic shotgun shells, candy and chip wrappers, and nip bottles. Here is a record of his findings.
The photographs in the slideshow above tell a shocking story of the huge amount of trash that is washing up on the shores of a tiny town, on the coast of a tiny state — a microcosm of the amount of coastline of the world and a microcosm of the amount of trash washing up on coastlines all around the world.
Geoff speaks passionately about the issue of coastal pollution and the impact that it has on human and animal life. And he speaks with frustration about the lack of involvement by “the majority of people who walk past litter, believe it is someone else’s job to pick it up. Is it because they are unconcerned or because they have become desensitized by the sheer volume of it in their everyday lives?” Learn more at Geoff’s website.
Over 45,000 pieces of trash picked up from Little Compton’s shoreline in the last 12 years.
- 22,422 single use plastic bottles
- 11,752 mylar balloons
- 9,545 plastic bottle caps
- 3,301 latex balloons
- 2,368 plastic straws
- 2,013 spent plastic shotgun shells
- 1,127 nap bottles (in last 4 years)
- Etc.
Recycle, Reuse plastic containers, Refuse plastic bags. And Remember that your trash is someone else’s treasure.
Use social media sites such as Buy Nothing Little Compton/Tiverton to post items you’d like to give to someone else.
Articles about the trash washing up on RI coastline and plastic ocean pollution:
One Person Litter Patrol has Removed 40,000 plus Pieces of Trash from Rhode Island Shoreline Article from ecoRI News, Frank Carini. February 22, 2022 Plastic Embeds Itself Along Ocean State's Renowned Coastline Article from ecoRI News, Frank Carini. July 26, 2021 Rhode Island’s Efforts to Curb Plastic pollution. Mostly Words Task Force Reports Article from EcoRI News, Frank Carini, February 2, 2022 Ocean Plastic Pollution, An overview by UNESCO Article from UNESCO’s website, division of Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Marta Fava. May 9, 2022 7 Solutions to Plastic Pollution Article from Oceanic Society’s website. Brian Hutchinson, February 24, 2023
