These workers keep Old Orchard Beach’s coastline clean
OLD ORCHARD BEACH — A pink acrylic nail. A white plastic fork. Half of a paper plate. A string of mint green floss. A single black ankle sock.
These are just some of the items Fred Hoyt found discarded in the sand in the span of half an hour one morning last week.
He said the most common pieces of trash — by far — are cigarette butts. He counts how many he collects each day.
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“Yesterday was 379,” Hoyt said.
Hoyt, 66, is one of three seasonal employees who work for Old Orchard Beach, picking up trash on the town’s seven miles of shoreline every morning from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
They start at 5 a.m. and finish before many people staying in the oceanfront motels wake for the day.
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“We’re a very touristy town,” said Jaime Conte, administrative operations manager at the public works department. “People come for that 7 miles. They pay a lot of money to stay at these hotels all along the beach. The expectation is that it needs to be clean.”
Fred Hoyt uses his grippers to drag a broken boogie board to a trash can while cleaning the sand in Old Orchard Beach on Aug. 4. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
One in five visitors to Maine goes to the beach, according to a state Office of Tourism survey. Many destinations, such as neighboring Scarborough, add trash pickup to a list of responsibilities for seasonal park rangers or beach attendants. Some also rake the beaches when the weather is right and the birds aren’t nesting.
Volunteers sometimes help the cause. Surfrider Foundation organized a pickup in Old Orchard Beach on July 5 and collected 86 pounds of trash left by holiday revelers.
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In Old Orchard Beach, Conte said she would like to hire eight people to cover the entire beach each day. Her team of three is covering extra ground this year to make up for their staffing shortage. Conte said the job pays minimum wage, and there are no days off for weather or weekends.
Each member of the crew has a designated stretch of beach and their own strategy. Hoyt covers the beach to the west of the pier, zigzagging between the morning runners and the seagulls. He keeps a reusable Hannaford bag in his pocket in case he finds any unbroken toys, which he will clean and donate.
“Here’s the treasure hunter,” Hoyt said, exchanging a nod with a man carrying a large metal detector. “Morning, boss.”
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As the sun begins to break above the horizon, Fred Hoyt throws a piece of trash into his bucket while cleaning up at Old Orchard Beach on Aug. 4. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
Hoyt got a job as a garbageman in New Jersey in 1980 and spent his career in public works before retiring in 2018. He and his wife moved to Maine two years ago to be closer to their daughter and he recently became a proud grandfather. He said he took the job with Old Orchard Beach last year in part because the work felt familiar and in part because he wanted the exercise.
This season is his second. He walks 3 to 4 miles every day with his bucket in one hand and long trash picker in the other.
His wife likes to come down to the beach in the afternoons, but he prefers the quiet mornings. The rides at Palace Playland are dormant, the arcade is empty and no one is hawking fried dough. Instead, it’s just the sound of the waves and the Grateful Dead playing in his earbuds.
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As he worked last week, Hoyt glanced up from the sand at one point to see the radiant sun burst over the horizon.
“That’s my shot,” he said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket to snap a picture.
The hardest part of the job isn’t the daily alarm set for 3:45 a.m. or the heavy bucket or even the rainy mornings, Hoyt said. It’s the bottlecaps and the 16 cigarettes left in a pile, the abandoned boogie board and the beer cans buried in the sand instead of deposited in a nearby trash can.
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Fred Hoyt reaches for a potato chip bag while cleaning the beach in Old Orchard Beach on Aug. 4. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
“It’s seeing how people don’t care,” Hoyt said, shoulders slumping and good cheer dissolving for a moment. “That’s what hurts the most.”
He sighed and unearthed a banana peel.
“Why?” he said, dropping it into his bucket. “There’s really no need for it. You know you’re going to the beach. Bring a garbage bag.”
It was just past 6 a.m.
The first beachgoers had already arrived, staking tents and spreading towels, claiming their perfect spot of sand.
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Tagged: maine beaches, Making Vacationland, old orchard beach
Megan Gray covers the outdoors and tourism at the Portland Press Herald. A Midwest native, she moved to Maine in 2016. She has written about presidential politics and local government, jury trials and. More by Megan Gray
