- May 6, 2024
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Flagler Beach beachgoers on the Fourth of July. Photo by Sierra Williams
Flagler Beach generated approximately 137 tons (around 274,000 pounds) of trash from June 30 to July 7. Photo courtesy of Rob Smith
Flagler Beach generated approximately 11 tons of recycling — including 4 tons of cardboard — from from June 30 to July 7. Photo courtesy of Rob Smith
Flagler Beach picked up approximately 5 tons of trash from city and beach trash cans on July Fourth. Photo courtesy of Rob Smith
Flagler Beach is no stranger to crowded beaches — and, likewise, the messes the crowds leave behind.
But since Rob Smith, Flagler Beach’s sanitation supervisor, was hired almost four years ago, the amount of trash his department picks up has doubled, he said.
“When I started, we were doing about 70-80 tons of residential and commercial trash a week,” Smith said. “On a normal week [now,] my residential and commercial trash is at 130-140 tons.”
The problem parallels ones Flagler Beach officials pointed out at a multi-municipality meeting the city hosted on June 21.
On a normal week [now] my residential and commercial trash is at 130-140 tons."
— ROB SMITH, Flagler Beach sanitation supervisor
Flagler Beach Commission Chair Eric Cooley said then that Flagler Beach is not prepared for the county’s starkly growing population. Holidays and peak tourist times only make that more evident.
Smith’s team worked hard during the week leading up to the July 4 celebrations, moving trash receptacles to the busier areas like Veterans Park and popular walkovers.
On holidays, Smith said, the team runs the beach and empties city cans twice: once in the morning, and again around 4:30 p.m.
They picked up approximately five tons of trash from the city and beach trash cans alone on the Fourth, he said — more than three times as much as they usually get from the cans in one day.
Often, the cans are overflowing before staff get to them.
In years past, Smith said, he handed out color-coordinated trash bags to beachgoers to encourage them to at least bag their trash.
Flagler Beach Mayor Suzie Johnston hands out bright orange garbage bags during events too, alongside Carla Cline, founder of the community volunteer organization Flagler Beach All-Stars.
Johnston has been handing out garbage bags at events for almost six years and has helped with the All-Stars' beach cleanups even longer.
Over the years, she said, the All-Stars have actually been finding less trash at cleanups because residents are learning to bring their own trash bags to the beach.
"It's a big success," Johnston said. "You can tell a difference in the amount of trash because before, no one had any garbage bags. ... Now, they're kind of trained."
Still, Smith said, there are always people too lazy to throw their trash away properly.
“I could put a trash can every 50 feet on A1A, and it still wouldn’t fix the problem,” he said. “You still have the same people that leave baby diapers in the dunes 20 feet from a trash can.”
Turtle Patrol volunteer Lori Ottlein said the trash also endangers wildlife.
From May to September, sea turtles make their nests on the beach.
The adult turtles get caught in the straps of lawn chairs and bags, Ottlein said, while baby turtles on their way to the ocean crawl into sand buckets and containers left on the beach, unable to crawl out on their own.
“It just keeps going forward, powers forward in the bucket,” she said. “There's no reverse on a turtle. They don’t know how to back out.”
Ottlein said part of the problem comes from residents who leave things on the beach to collect the next morning.
But tourists who come to the beaches often buy cheap lawn chairs, foam boogie boards, coolers, canopies — everything they need to enjoy the beach, Smith said.
I could put a trash can every 50 feet on A1A, and it still wouldn’t fix the problem."
— ROB SMITH, Flagler Beach sanitation supervisor
And when it comes time to pack up and go home, the purchases can’t fit in the car or plane. So some people just leave them on the beach.
“You'd be amazed how many — on an average weekend — how many Styrofoam boogie boards that I throw away,” he said. “On average holiday weekends, we’ll probably throw away 30 to 40 of those canopies.”
Volusia County and Flagler Beach host plenty of cleanups after events.
In Volusia County, 26.51 tons of trash and recycling were collected from Volusia County beaches on July 5 alone, according to an email from Volusia County Community Information Marketing Specialist David Hunt.
Hunt wrote that the county usually has a combination of individuals, groups and businesses come out to help clean the beaches after holidays. The county also organizes beach cleanups, he wrote.
Flagler Beach does not have a total number for how much trash was pulled from its beaches on July 5, in part because multiple organizations hosted cleanups.
The annual July 5 cleanup led by the Flagler Beach All-Stars had over 50 participants, Johnston said, and cleared around 70 pounds of trash. The All-Stars group also holds a beach cleanup at the beginning of every month.
The Friends of Scenic A1A and Historic Coastal Byway also met for a beach cleanup on July 5.
Danielle Anderson, a Friends of Scenic A1A director, wrote that the group collected around 600 pounds of trash from the beach.
The number of people is not only increasing the amount of trash, but how Smith’s sanitation team serves the community, too.
Including himself, Smith has seven full-time sanitation employees, and between six and eight temporary workers. Because of the number of people condensed into the area during the day, he said, his goal is to have all the trucks back in the yard by 1 p.m.
People come to Flagler Beach for a week's vacation, he said, but don’t realize that the city doesn’t stop working just because they’re here.
On a busy beach day, there’s so many people wandering around — I look at everything as a liability."
— ROB SMITH, Flagler Beach sanitation supervisor
“On a busy beach day, there’s so many people wandering around — I look at everything as a liability,” he said.
His trucks run commercial routes during the day as well, but often can’t get to businesses to empty out their dumpsters because of overcrowded parking. Some areas near his trucks' stops are even filled with people standing in line at food trucks.
“They're here every day, from seven in the morning until nine,” Smith said. “Some days you can’t get a truck in there. … So that stuff’s got to sit overnight.”
Smith said he fields calls from business owners and residents alike about overflowing dumpsters.
While crowds prevent pickups during the day, he said, city ordinances prevent him from running pickups before 7 a.m.
“Some of these restaurants, if it continues to build, they're going to have to be dumped either super early in the morning or late at night, twice a day," he said. "Because they just can't support that much waste overnight.”
The rise in population, tourists and commercial businesses means that his team sometimes has to split the commercial routes or make three to four trips for the commercial stops a day just to hit them all.
Johnston said the city hopes to encourage interest in Flagler County's other beaches, so day-trippers and locals can enjoy those locations and leave the more well-known areas for tourist access during holidays like July Fourth, Memorial Day and other peak tourist times.
All of the typical beach holidays bring an influx of people to Flagler Beach, Johnston said.
"What I would compare a typical Saturday in Flagler Beach [to] now, is what our Fourth of July used to be like," Johnston said. "Soon it's going to be [that] a typical beach day, even a weekday ... is going to be like the Fourth of July was in the '90s."
Soon it's going to be [that] a typical beach day, even a weekday ... is going to be like the Fourth of July was in the '90s."
— SUZIE JOHNSTON, Flagler Beach mayor
For now, Smith said, he’ll work with the tools he has.
He has two new dump trucks coming this year: one that has been on backorder since he ordered it in 2021, and another from the 2023 fiscal year budget.
These trucks, he said, are smaller — single axle, meaning less wear and tear on the trucks and tires.
They’ll also fit better in tighter streets, reaching routes and dumpsters in more crowded areas.
Smith said that for the rest of the city, getting the trash picked up just means placing receptacles where they’re needed and handing out trash bags, and accepting that some people still won’t use them.
“You have to change their behavior by making them do different things,” he said. “But unfortunately, there’s a lot people that just don’t care.”
