On October 17th, 2026, the Rutgers University Chapter of SWMS (RU-SWMS) participated in a nature walk and a beach cleanup on Petty’s Island in Pennsauken, New Jersey. This event was done in collaboration with the Surfrider Foundation, whose goal is to protect beaches and coastlines across the country, the New Jersey Natural Lands Trust, who manages the island, and the Center for Aquatic Sciences, who partners with Camden Aquarium. Petty’s Island sits between Camden, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is located in the middle of the Delaware River. A 2021 study showed that the Delaware River is the single leading source of microplastic pollution compared to all other waterways in North America, making one of the main goals of the cleanup to prevent this plastic reaching the ocean. It was also important to remove plastic from the island itself, as the island is surrounded by tidal marsh and is habitat to many important species, including Bald Eagles. Additionally, the NJ Natural Lands Trust is aiming to build an environmental center on the island to serve local communities in the greater Camden and Philadelphia area, to which the island needs to be cleaned up first. Because of these factors, volunteers were greatly needed, which is why RU-SWMS chose Petty’s Island as our target beach cleanup location. The volunteers filled up many trash bags, including our SWMS members filled up four large trash bags between the five members that came. Overall, we left the shoreline of the island a lot cleaner than when we first got there and learned a lot while doing so!
Through this event, we were able to connect with and collaborate with several environmental foundations that are important in Southern New Jersey. Specifically, our Chapter fostered a connection with the Center for Aquatic Sciences, which is a nonprofit organization that partners with the Camden Aquarium. The Center for Aquatic Sciences focuses on science education, youth development, and environmental conservation, and often partners with the New Jersey Natural Lands Trust and the Surfrider Foundation. After this event, RU-SWMS planned an educational event with the Center in early February of 2027 for our members to come and speak to high school students in their Youth Development Program. As women in an environmental field, it is important to establish connections within our community and to inspire other young women to pursue careers in STEM, so we are glad that we got to do so through this event.
This event was also important to RU-SWMS as we were able to connect with existing SWMS members and also new members that were present at the event, including a new student in our program. It is important to foster connections within our department and at Rutgers, and expand our club to new students who bring unique ideas and perspectives. All of our members who were present said they had a great time and learned a lot of new things, and want to attend a similar event in the future! We were very grateful to have the support of the SWMS Steering Committee for our Chapter to host this event and collaborate with several local organizations to do so. We look forward to working with these organizations in the future, and are happy that we got to uphold the missions of our Chapter through this event.