More than 7,000 volunteers pick up 104 tons of trash from Texas beaches during annual Fall Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup

The results for Saturday's 29th annual Fall Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup by the Texas General Land Office are in. Unfortunately red tide conditions resulted in the cancellation of nine sites along the southern part of the coast including six locations in the Corpus Christi area and all three locations in the Rio Grande Valley. Despite this setback, 7,427 volunteers showed up at 21 locations to remove 208,816 pounds of trash from 116 miles of Texas coastline!

"Marine debris kills wildlife and hurts local tourism, but it's a problem we can fix together," said Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush. "This year thousands of Adopt-A-Beach volunteers joined forces to care for the coast. Texans across the Lone Star State are welcome to make a tax-deductible donation or find information about the next clean up online at www.TexasAdoptABeach.org."

Since 1986, more than 488,000 Adopt-A-Beach volunteers have cleaned more than 9,200 tons of trash from Texas beaches. Cigarette butts, beer cans and plastic bags are among the most common items found. But with each cleanup, plenty of odd and unusual items inevitably are reported. On Saturday, the list of weird stuff found on Texas beaches included a bicycle handle bar, five $1 bills, a refrigerator, 200 gallon plastic tank, old 25" television, a gas stove top, a wine glass, toy soldier, car parts, a fitted sheet set, an inhaler, a telephone pole and a jug from China.

The Texas General Land Office Adopt-A-Beach program is an all-volunteer effort to remove trash from Texas' shores. Coastal cleanups are held three times each year and the program's success is due to the hard work of volunteers, including local coordinators who work many unpaid hours publicizing the cleanups in coastal communities. The next coastwide cleanup will be the Spring Adopt-A-Beach effort scheduled for Saturday, April 23, 2016. Adopt-A-Beach volunteers record data on the trash they find to learn more about the causes of marine debris and to help mitigate pollution along Texas' 367 miles of coastline.

Adopt-A-Beach corporate sponsors and local media sponsors provide the necessary resources to help underwrite the costs associated with our annual events. Shell Oil Company is the lead statewide sponsor for the 2015 Texas General Land Office Adopt-A-Beach Fall Cleanup. Other sponsors include Apache Corporation, Murphy Oil Corporation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Debris Program, Schlumberger, the Ocean Conservancy, Corona Del Mar Properties and Trusted Senior Specialists.

To learn more about the Adopt-A-Beach program, visit  www.TexasAdoptABeach.org or contact the GLO at 1-877-TX COAST. Like us on Facebook at  www.facebook.com/texasadoptabeach or follow us on Twitter  @TXAdoptABeach.