Volunteers from BIOS spent a day scouring beaches, snorkeling in shallow waters, and diving with tanks to remove marine debris, as well as to document the types and quantities of materials collected, during an annual, island-wide clean up effort in September. Eight BIOS employees and students were involved in an on-water operation to retrieve underwater debris on Frank’s Bay in Southampton.

Bottles, bits of plastic, and a discarded lawn chair were among items pulled from Whalebone Bay and Mullet Bay during the annual Ocean Conservancy international coastal clean up on September 16, sponsored locally by Ernst and Young in partnership with Keep Bermuda Beautiful.

When the ongoing pandemic scuttled Maya Leighton’s plans this fall to attend a university overseas, she instead enrolled for a year at Bermuda College. There, a professor noted Leighton’s commitment to marine sciences and suggested a unique opportunity. How about spending Saturdays at BIOS, learning about coral reefs, marine microplastics, plankton, and mangrove restoration on island?

BIOS students removed trash and debris from Whalebone Bay during the 30th annual International Coastal Cleanup on Sept. 19, sponsored locally by Ernst and Young in partnership with Keep Bermuda Beautiful. Students at BIOS from the University of Rhode Island and Roger Williams University, as well as students in the BIOS Research Experience for Undergraduates program, teamed up with Bermuda Ocean Explorers for the event. In three hours they gathered 17 bags of trash and four bags of recyclable aluminum and glass, and removed half of an abandoned boat hull. Educator Kaitlin Baird, who helped coordinate the event for BIOS, said the experience “was a great opportunity for students to give back to the community.”

On Saturday, September 21, while much of the island was still recovering from Hurricane Humberto, a group of 25 people, including 20 BIOS staff, interns, and fall semester students, joined the annual EY Bermuda Coastal Clean-up. The annual event, held in support of Keep Bermuda Beautiful, is timed to coincide with the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup, which is the largest single-day ocean clean-up event in the world.

A scooter, four abandoned octopus traps, a 14-foot long fishing net, and several dozen flip-flops were among the items collected by 52 volunteers on September 15 during a three-hour shoreline cleanup at Whalebone Bay, part of the EY Bermuda Coastal Cleanup in support of Keep Bermuda Beautiful.