GULF SHORES, AL – Noel Hand offered up some stunning numbers from Gulf Shores’ beach recycling program.

In 2015, the first full year of the program, 1.1 million aluminum cans were taken from the beach along with 4.2 million plastic bottles. In total there were 173 tons of material picked up by city crews.

Before the pilot program in 2014, which started in July of that year, all of that refuse went into the ground at Magnolia Springs.

“We had a massive trash issue on the beach so we implemented a pilot program for the beach and a recycling program,” Hand said. “It was a success and the city council gave us an opportunity in to run in 2015 with a fantastic program for beach side recycling on four of eight miles of our beaches.

The recycling program meant a major reduction in refuse that went to the dump during the first full year in 2015.

“Of 153 trash trucks that came off the beach, about 50 of those went to the Magnolia Springs landfill,” Hand said. “So it’s a 70 percent recycling rate when it comes off the beach.”

But even with the success of the program, Hand, the assistant Public Works director for the city, said more work was needed.

“We realized that wasn’t enough,” he said. “It wasn’t just about trash left on the beach or in the cans and overflowing. It’s the tents, it’s the umbrellas, the coolers. Campsites is what essentially what was going on the beach. They come in on Sunday, set up their camp and left it there all week.”

City trucks were having a hard time navigating through the mess as were sea turtles who come ashore overnight to lay eggs.

Orange Beach was experiencing the same problems. Environmental Planner Nicole Woerner with the city said a group of city government officials, business partners, the Coastal Alabama Business Chamber and the Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism got together and made a decision.

“Let’s get rid of this stuff,” Woerner said.

And a great collaboration began, with the end result being the Leave Only Footprints campaign.

“That wouldn’t be possible unless we had great partnerships,” Woerner said. “The chamber, Gulf Shores Orange Beach Tourism, all of these leaders got together because we don’t want people to come to Orange Beach and Gulf Shores and leave their stuff out at night.”

Hand said one of the main things the group sought to make it work was coordination between everybody on what would be enforced.

“We wanted to have the opportunity to put out the same message,” Hand said. “What’s in the ordinance is you can’t leave anything on the beach one hour after sunset. If it is left it will be removed, it will be taken, it will be removed and it won’t be given back.”

And Woerner said, to avoid hurt feelings when things were removed and not returned, the cities, chamber and tourism official had to spread the word through rental companies, signs and other campaigns.

“So we started this educational campaign,” she said. “I have to give credit to Colette (Boehm) and Herb (Malone) and the CVB because they created the Leave Only Footprints material. “Education is huge. As we know our groups come in for a week at a time so every week we’re educating a new group of folks.”

Orange Beach recruited volunteers to spread the word about the rules as well as good will and they do so in brightly colored four-door jeeps.

“We have something different in our beach ambassador program,” Woerner said. “We have a group of six ladies and gentlemen who go out every day and make face-to-face contact.

The ambassadors tell them about the new rules, give them bracelets with a message about the effort, trash bags and cups if they are drinking out of a glass container. Woerner said just since spring break started the ambassadors have given away 4,000 of the bracelets and 3,000 orange trash bags.

Reactions from social media, monitored by tourism officials, have been 90 percent positive and spreading the word through signs and brochures has helped tremendously, Hand said.

“People are adhering, but there’s a about a half truckload of chairs and tents that are being left behind that we are removing,” he said.

For those who are asking for stuff back, Hand said, city officials find who they are renting from and contact them to tell them about the Leave Only Footprints campaign to pass along to future customers.