On Saturday April 13th, members of the Syosset branch of AYLUS participated in the Town of Oyster Bay harbor cleanup at Theodore Roosevelt Park. Members picked up trash in the park such as bottle caps, plastic wrappers, styrofoam, plastic bags and glass shards. Such garbage is non biodegradable and often ends up in the ocean, dramatically affecting marine organisms as well as birds that consume such organisms due to bio magnification in the food chain. Sea turtles are especially vulnerable to plastic consumption as their main food source is jellyfish, sea turtles mistaken plastic bags as jellyfish and therefore ingest the plastic bags, causing them to suffocate. As plastic get into the water, they break down into microplastics which gets ingested by marine animals at the bottom of the food chain and is bio magnified up the food chain, affecting predators higher up on the food chain.
In addition to harbor cleanup, members were also educated on the effects and sources of nitrogen on Long Island. Nitrogen is deposited from many sources such as animal manure, organic and inorganic fertilizer. Nitrogen is then deposited into bodies of water which causes eutrophication and leads to hypoxic conditions that causes a fish kill.
Participating members: Suiying Li (2.5h) Rita Bao (2.5h) Amanda Gao (2.5h) , haohua wang (2h), haodong wang (2h), Nichole Huang (1.5h) Sonia Huang (1.5h) Jianie Huang (1.5h)
