For our contribution to Earth Day 2023, Hull’s was proud to once again participate in the 3rd Annual Great Port Cleanup on Friday, April 21st. In a partnership with Port Tampa Bay and Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful, the event is designed to remove trash and marine debris from several sites in and around the port. The event is a call to action for the port community to support the ongoing efforts to keep Tampa Bay a beautiful place to live, work, and play.
Old furniture, demolished tiles, car and truck tires, wood, and a dilapidated boat were part of an enormous cache of trash and debris that was collected, transported and disposed of by days end. Specifically, the numbers looked like this:
-32 sites
-851 volunteers
-1,877 Bags of trash
-79,698 lbs of debris and bags removed
In addition to the trash and debris, it was also an opportunity to remove 30,000 pounds of invasive weeds that can choke out mangroves and other native plants critical to a health shoreline.
More details and additional pictures of the event can be found here: Third Annual Great Port Clean Up – Final Report_.
Some encouraging facts from 2022 to 2023:
-Total Number of Sites: 32 total – 3 open to public; 29 private groups. 11 more sites in 2023 vs 2022.
-Total Number of Volunteers: 851. Last year’s volunteers: 451 or an increase of 400 volunteers.
-Total Weight of Trash Collected in Pounds: 79,698. Last Year’s weight in pounds: 37,425 or an increase of 42,273 pounds in 2023.
-Total Number of 43 gallon trash bags collected: 1877. Last year’s bags collected: 724 or an increase of 1,153 Bags collected in 2023.
-Removed 30,013 pounds of invasive weeds; almost double from 2022.
