With event season on the horizon, Mayor Jane Castor is launching a new campaign as part of her sustainability and resilience commitment: Bead-Free Bay.
#BeadFreeBay is an anti-littering awareness campaign to remind the public that throwing beads and other litter in the water is prohibited. Beads and other non-biodegradable items are incredibly harmful to our environment and they pose serious threats to marine wildlife. The goal of the Bead-Free Bay campaign is to minimize the environmental impact of our City’s traditions and events on our waterways and beyond.
“Environmental sustainability is a core tenant of my administration’s focus,” said City of Tampa Mayor Jane Castor. “And while we all love a good parade, the beads thrown during the parade have no place harming our delicate ecosystem. Together, we will transform Tampa’s tomorrow by keeping our marine wildlife safe and our environment clean by keeping beads out of the water this and every event season moving forward.”
The City of Tampa is proud of its many waterfront community activities like the Holiday Lighted Boat Parade and Gasparilla. Gasparilla is Tampa’s largest annual tradition, drawing over 300,000 people for the main parade and over a million attendees throughout the whole season. With so many visitors—by land and by sea—countless beads and other debris end up in the bay each event season.
