TAMPA, Fla. — Gasparilla is the third-largest parade in the world. That means the litter left behind could probably hold some world records of its own.
After the pirates have cleared out, all that's left behind are thousands of beads scattered across the streets, in the trees and on the sidewalks of downtown Tampa.
“Our efforts today are to collect as much trashes we can, and also recycle the beads that were collecting," Debbie Evenson, executive director of Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful, said. "When you have close to 300,000 spectators attending a big event like this, a parade, there is so much trash that’s leftover and we’re here to pick it up, our volunteers are."
Gasparilla was canceled in 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The year prior, tons of beads were collected following the parade.
“I want to say in 2020 we collected about 5,000 pounds of litter and debris," Evenson said. "We also collected recyclables. We collected over 30,000 strands of beads to be recycled back to the MacDonald Training Center.”
Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful partners with the city of Tampa in the clean-up efforts. Those clean-up efforts are considered the final float of the Gasparilla parade.
“Several departments from the city of Tampa follow the end of the parade to do street sweeping," Shelby Lewis, recycling coordinator for the City of Tampa, said. "They do basically the first round cleanups to remove as much trash as possible to get Bayshore back open.”
If this year compares to the last Gasparilla, dozens of tons of trash will be brought in.
“In 2020, there were 37 tons of trash, and each ton is 2000 pounds," Lewis explained. "So that’s a lot of trash."
Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful also partners with groups to help collect litter from below the water's surface.
“When you leave the beads in the bay, and even trash in the bay, you’re harming the habitat," Evenson said. "Our wildlife, fish, turtles, the plastic bags, turtles think it’s a jellyfish. So they’ll eat it and suffocate because of it.”
Adventure Outfitters sent dive teams into the bay Sunday morning to begin gathering beads thrown in.
If you have a pile of beads from Gasparilla, you're asked to put them to good use. Starting Monday, January 31 through May 2022, Gasparilla revelers are encouraged to take unwanted beads to any of the following collection sites:
• Kate Jackson Community Center – 821 S Rome Ave., Tampa, FL 33606
• Loretta Ingraham Recreation Complex – 1611 N Hubert Ave., Tampa, FL 33607
• Copeland Park Center – 11001 N 15th St., Tampa, FL 33612
• MacDonald Training Center – 5420 W Cypress St., Tampa, FL 33607
The beads will be cleaned and reused. Beads and other non-biodegradable items are incredibly harmful to our environment and pose serious threats to marine wildlife. They take a thousand years to break down into smaller pieces called microplastics, which never decompose.