5,000 Pounds in One Morning: Nearly 100 Volunteers Clean Lee County's Mangroves on Halloween

Nearly 100 volunteers spent Halloween morning doing the least glamorous work on the Southwest Florida coast. Keep Lee County Beautiful's annual Monofilament Madness Marine Cleanup removed more than 5,000 pounds of trash and debris from local waterways, mangroves and shorelines in a single morning, the organization reported, as volunteers worked by boat, kayak, paddleboard and on foot to retrieve discarded fishing line, plastics and other marine debris.

The geography explains the tonnage. Crews launching from Salty Sam's Marina navigated the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve, tackling litter trapped within mangrove roots and along shallow waterways; paddleboarders maneuvered through narrow mangrove tunnels to reach areas inaccessible to larger boats, while boat crews hauled away heavy, waterlogged debris. On Fort Myers Beach, volunteers gathered at the Tunaskin store to collect litter along the shoreline, and at Matlacha Community Park, Calusa Waterkeeper hosted volunteers in partnership with KLCB. 'Removing more than 5,000 pounds of debris in just one morning is an incredible accomplishment,' said Trish Fancher, KLCB's executive director. 'Some of the items our volunteers recovered were extremely large and difficult to remove.'

The cleanup has run since 1991, built around the hazard in its name: monofilament fishing line becomes entangled in mangroves and poses a serious threat to birds, fish and other wildlife, while larger debris damages sensitive coastal habitats. After the morning's work, volunteers gathered for appreciation lunches at Parrot Key Caribbean Grill and The Whale on Fort Myers Beach, with a partner list that ran from LCEC, SeaTow and FPL to Lee County Solid Waste, the Town of Fort Myers Beach and Keep America Beautiful.