Executive Director Bonnie Monteleone saw the event as an opportunity for participants to learn about the effects plastics have on the ocean.

BEAUFORT -- The Wilmington-based nonprofit Plastic Ocean Project Inc. held what it hopes will become the first of many Fishing 4 Plastic events on June 3 in Beaufort.

The idea came from Executive Director Bonnie Monteleone as an opportunity for participants to learn more about the effects that plastics have on the ocean environment. It was also intended as a way to get the fishing community involved and working in partnership with Plastic Ocean Project to help preserve fish life and habitats.

The event, hosted at the N.C. Maritime Museumin Beaufort, allowed participants to form teams and venture offshore in order to collect trash, plastic and seaweed near the Gulf Stream.

The event was sponsored by the Blockade Runner Beach Resort in Wrightsville Beach, and awards were given out for various amounts of trashand types of trash collected.

We will have prizes for most plastic foundby weight and number, most unusual piece, most useful piece, and most languages found, said Jessica Horne, a UNCW graduate student who had been working on the event over the past semester.

Horne said the event was a success, with six teams -- a total of 36 to 40 people -- who ventured offshore to collect floating trash. One team accumulated about 80 pounds worth of trash, including a 60-pound wooden pallet that was floating in the ocean.

A lot balloons were found,Horne said, probably since it was graduation season. One team brought back balloons that had been in the water so long they had lost their color. That is really scary and dangerous, Horne said, because turtles mistake the floating balloons for jellyfish and try to eat them.

The cleanup competition was not the event's only draw. If folks wanted to stay on land, the event had entertainment and activities at Beaufort's Maritime Museum, including a community art project and games forkids. There was also a beach cleanup at Radio Island.

Around 200 pounds of trash were collected in the offshore and beach cleanups. And the museum saw a lot of foot traffic.

It was a beautiful day, Horne said. We also talked to locals who seemed very excited with and interested in what we were doing. Overall, it was areally successful event and we had a great day.

The hope is that this tournament will bean educational opportunity for people to learn more about the effects that plastics have on the oceans and fish habitats, Horne said. After participating in the event, we hope that people will be more conscious about using plastics or finding alternativesfor using plastics.

Monteleone hopes the event will become an annual event occurrence and expand to other areas.

The mission of the nonprofit Plastic Ocean Project is to reduce plastic pollution through outreach, art, research and education.

Our vision is to rid the oceans of plastic," said Tammy Bleier, a board member. "For this purpose, we work with and for the next generation to find sustainable solutions, because we realize the plastic pollution problem willoutlive us.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington has a Plastic Ocean Project chapter called Little POP, which offers support and volunteers.There is also a chapter in Charleston and another one starting in Raleigh.

For more information or to get involved, visit Plastic Ocean's Project website http://www.plasticoceanproject.org.

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