Russ Zimmer

@RussZimmer

Beach Sweeps, where volunteers clean up debris on Shore beaches, are this Saturday morning.

Organizers collect data on the trash, including some 219,000 pieces from last year.

Four out of every five pieces was plastic, including bottles and utensils.

The video above shows the 12 most common types of litter found on NJ beaches in 2016.

What do an iPod, a pregnancy test, a pink lawn flamingo and three car bumpers have in common?

They were all among the bizarre items of trash and debris found on New Jersey beaches in 2016.

Aside from serving as the set-up to a bad joke, that list is a reminder: Our beaches may be a refuge from the work-a-day world, but they are also especially vulnerable to litter — both the mundane and the insane — that can endanger wildlife and threaten the tourism economy.

"The beach debris is not only ugly, but it is harmful and lethal to marine life," said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

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Every April (before the summer crowds descend) and October (when the tourism season ends), Clean Ocean Action organizes cleanups called Beach Sweeps in more than 70 locations on the Shore, most of which are in Monmouth and Ocean counties.

To learn more about or to register for the Beach Sweeps on Saturday morning, April 22, go to www.cleanoceanaction.org.More than 5,000 people have signed up so far, according to Zipf.

About 219,000 pieces of litter and debris were picked up off of New Jersey beaches during last year's sweeps. That number, however, was curbed a bit by poor weather, which suppressed volunteer turnout, during the fall session. More than 300,000 pieces are collected in a routine year, according to past reports.

The video below shows rehabilitated seals being released at Sandy Hook on Wednesday afternoon.

Here's some of what Clean Ocean Action's 2016 data reveals about our bad habits:

More than 81 percent of the items collected were plastic or foam plastic. Environmentalists have been sounding the alarm about the dangers that plastics pose to the ocean. Over time, plastic products, such as soda bottles or utensils, are broken down into smaller and smaller pieces by the twin forces of sunlight and wave action. These microplastics are then mistaken as food by sealife. Those fish are eaten by bigger fish and on and on up the food chain until you get to the top: humans.

“I really feel that we’re far too wasteful with the single-use items that we’re finding on the beach," Zipf said, "whether it's bags or straws or candy wrappers, we really need to get much better at this.”

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This litter doesn't just come from careless individuals or families at the beach. It can sometimes be traced back to a strong wind knocking over garbage cans on trash day or a driver, miles inland, pitching a soft drink cup out of their window.

“Next time you're stopped at a (traffic) light just take a look outside at the curb and see how many cigarette butts and pieces of garbage are there from people waiting who just throw (the trash) out the window," said Kari Martin, a member of Clean Ocean Action's Board of Trustees. "That does blow out to the sea, but it also gets into the waterways through rain and snow melt and then out into the ocean."

New Jersey does not ban smoking on beaches, but some of its municipalities do. Sixteen, including Long Branch and Seaside Heights, impose the ban, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation. Back in 2012, there were nearly 50,000 cigarette butts removed during the sweeps, the top item of trash that year. Last year cigarette filters ranked lower and were in less abundance — again, the fall data was held down by bad weather — but that's not a cause for celebration.

“There’s room for many more smoking bans on beaches," Martin said. "We’re still finding over 20,000 filters on two mornings of beach cleanups.”

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Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com