On March 21 of 2021, thirty teenagers spent 3 hours cleaning up trash from Old Garden Beach in Rockport.

These teens are all members of the volunteer group Turn the Tide Mass, an organization built to help solve the global plastic crisis one beach at a time. The organization is based in seven schools which include Hamilton-Wenham, Rockport, Burlington, and more.

Senior Camden Wheeler head of Rockport operations said,  “Our plans are much bigger than just the north shore.” He believes Turn the Tide Mass is for the future. 

Senior Jamison Wrinn, Vice President of the organization believes Turn The Tide Mass will be around for a very long time. “The organization is growing faster than we ever imagined, we have doubled our volunteers and clean ups since last year expanding our organization into 6 different school systems.” 

The organization hopes to add additional school systems by the end of 2021. 

Wrirnn was happy with the progress the group made in Rockport.  This beach was filled with microplastic embedded in hundreds of pounds of seaweed. The volunteers spent about 3 hours sifting through seaweed and checking under rocks for anything that didn’t belong. In the end, they collected about 15 bags of waste leaving Old Garden beach spotless. 

Turn the Tide Mass travels on a different beach every other week. Usually, they meet on Sundays from 12 to 2pm.  More information about the group and how to volunteer can be found on their website.

Tara Caldwell, a senior and head of the Essex Tech operations, hopes new members will join so more beaches can be preserved saying, “The change starts today.”