CAROLINA BEACH — Trash on the beach. It’s something the Town of Carolina Beach is all too familiar with, especially at Freeman Park where the town provides dumpsters and trashcans. But a new initiative is being proposed to help reduce trash overflows, and waste on the beach –– Carry In/Carry Out (CiCo).
Earlier this year, a meeting was held by the Freeman Park Committee to discuss the development of a CiCo program, which would eliminate all trash services from Freeman Park. A majority consensus of the committee agreed to move forward with the plan, according to a meeting handout given at the July committee meeting.
The idea behind a CiCo program is to reduce trash left on the beach and overflowing in trash cans along the strand. Visitors would be responsible for taking out everything they brought in.
But simply implementing this type of program without a plan isn’t something the committee wants to do.
The committee has a four-part plan to introduce the program, but the idea is still in its infancy. The discussion from the Freeman Park Committee is the start to a longer process, Town Councilman and Freeman Park Committee Member JoDan Garza said.
The four-part plan includes: education, community awareness, incentivization, and local engagement.
“The general public, not only local but visitors, must be made aware of this change well in advance so that they can plan accordingly and not be taken by surprise. The policy must also be highly visible to the public as they enter Carolina Beach, Freeman Park, and the Beach Strand through a series of marketing developed signs, symbols and sayings, both in English and Spanish,” according to committee documents.
After educating visitors, ensuring the community is aware of the program is crucial. A marketing campaign and tagline are proposed to ensure visitors and residents are aware of the new plan.
But what exactly would people do with their trash after packing it out? That’s where the incentivizing comes into account.
“We need to incentivize people to carry their trash out and make it a convenience, not an annoyance. Visitors will need a place to easily deposit their trash and recyclables, and as a further reward for doing so, be given access to air compressors and hoses. A family of 4 in their SUV who have been camping all week and doing a great job of bagging all their trash will not be inclined to transport all that trash back to their home. We must give them a place to deposit it,” according to the plan summary.
While removing trash services will inevitably reduce some costs for the town, the program is not about finances, rather it is an environmental program.
“It is imperative that the Town of Carolina Beach be committed to this program financially, trying to do it on the cheap or piecemeal will ensure its failure. Funds will be saved by this program, those funds should be redirected back into the project. This initiative should NOT be considered a cost-savings budgetary program but a comprehensive environmental effort,” the plan concludes.
“If we raise prices and eliminate services without incentivizing them, we will alienate our customers. Consider this as an example of making this a financial effort and not an environmental effort: It would be like a hotel chain increasing room rates but eliminating daily maid service for their guests, but the hotel continued to fund and maintain its housekeeping staff.”
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