The Newsmagazine of Long Beach Island and Southern Ocean County

By Jay Mann | on July 10, 2022

It was the most crowded July Fourth – or any summer day – ever. As irrefutable scientific proof, I had to park over two blocks from my workplace on Monday – and even then, I inched into a questionable spot where I thereafter spent the day fearing Lovely Rita might cite my proudly rusted truck. I’ve been parking at The SandPaper for well over 30 years and I have never been forced that far afield.

That diversion noted, I still don’t mind the crowds. Yes, I get hissified over traffic. And I shan’t dare share my inner-most thoughts about certain bicyclists – and would never forward a snarky motto like “Mount Bike … Leave Brain at Curb.” Still, there’s something nostalgically cool about so many folks all having a beach blast, as we did when toads shared the Island with us. Only old-timers will understand that back-when toad reference.

Sand partying is simply ingrained in my partying shoreline psyche, even if it means lying on broken glass. “Say what!?” Read on …

GRANULAR WEIRDNESS: With the help of broken glass, I get to move into The Weirdness Zone. I’ll title it: “For sand you are and to sand you shall return.” That begs an elucidation.

We all know that glass, famed as the heaviest stuff of our every-home recycling efforts, is little more than melted sand, chemically known SiO2, or silicon dioxide by name. Melted sand has become so prevalent throughout the humanly occupied portions of the world that it has assumed an ugly air of invasiveness, litter-wise. Tasked with disposing of overwhelming volumes of glass, we find ourselves walking on glass. In noble response, we recycle our brains out, trying to keep glass from dominating landfills.

While the glass recycling route offers a seemingly green disposal route, it is also leading us to something of an eco-dead-end, as we dutifully reclaim more glass than we can handle, creating a glass glut. Hoping to crush the glass glut are some highly intuitive former Tulane University students. They’ve conjured up a wildish glass repurposing plan, one that could quickly take on a beachy feel.

I got wind of this bizarre but potentially ingenious plan via a Fox news story/video titled, “Going green: Tulane scientists study recycled glass sand for coastal restoration.”

Franziska Trautmann, a chemical engineer and cofounder of Glass Half Full, told Fox that she and a friend dreamed up a glass-to-sand business while seniors at the university. Upon graduation, the students founded New Orleans’s only glass recycling center where glass bottles are turned into sand.

“We were a bit fed up that we couldn’t recycle our glass, that all of the wine bottles we were drinking were going to a landfill and so we decided to do something about it,” said Trautmann, vicariously crediting the fruit of the vine for assisting in their ingenuity.

She then added a beach restoration angle to the Glass Half Full endeavor.  “I always heard growing up that we lose a football field’s length of land every 100 minutes and that’s daunting. So we thought if we could turn this glass into sand and then rebuild our coast, that would be the ultimate win-win.”

Hey, need I repeat, “It’s only weird … until it works.”

Being into glass, especially old bottles and collectibles, I know the SiO2 story inside out. Most of all, I have seen how easily even the most jagged pieces of glass can quickly be tumbled into a smoothness. Ask any of the million-or-so sea glass collectors.

It is not outlandish to suggest crushed recycled glass can be processed into material suitable for beach rebuilding. OK, there might be come coloration issues, though I’m plenty weird enough to consider how cool a rainbow sand beach might look.

I hear your thought process and, no, the sand won’t have any lingering glass splinters and such. Tumbling leaves no piece unsmoothed, though initial production, now well underway, includes a final sifting step. For a detailed look at the finer aspects of turning glass into sand, see youtube.com/watch?v=SaZ61ixwj1Y&t=10s.

Already tapping into Glass Half Full sand stocks are companies that make sandbags. That’s an appropriate irony with flooding being associated with erosion events. Larger volumes of “Tulane sand” will soon be tried on low-attendance beachy areas.

As to any local applications of the born-again sand, I can see our always progressive bayman experimentally creating bay bottom aquaculture plots with the surely pure material, researching what clams think of it. If it is to the liking of bivalves, the sand could help baymen develop the perfect farmable clam bed.

Personally, I’m certain I can get Loveladies rich by marketing an elite line of glass-sand three-minute egg timers. Taking advance orders.

BUT THERE’S MORE, AL: Repurposing glass recyclables into sand could be pricey. However, it only takes a quick shift of recycling gears to potentially cover the processing cost. Enter aluminum, the one true moneymaker in the recycling realm – and growing in value by stock market heaps and bounds, i.e., aluminum prices have skyrocketed to the point I wish I had invested a few years back – to cover the start-up cost of my three-minute egg timers.

Aluminum puts glass to shame when it comes to reusability and the recycling bottom line. Value-wise, it can float the entire recycling boat. If we up our aluminum recycling game, we can help sponsor the sandification of trash glass.

Surely, Mr. Mann, you’re not suggesting we all run out and choose aluminum containers over glass. Uh, actually, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting. The trickle-down impacts will be the stuff of recycling legend since virtually every atom of recycled aluminum can be reclaimed and reused. Obviously, such aluminum-heavy thinking rubs glassmakers the wrong way. And might it also lower the raw material for sandmaking efforts? Never. There will always be overwhelming glass usage, egged on by those convinced that products in glass taste better – even though such betterness has never been proven in blind taste tests.

I’ll bend a bit by assuring that glass remains a very honorable – and required – recyclable. However, it doesn’t play out – or pay out – like aluminum. Might glass stocks rise as it becomes beach material? Imagine the marketability of “Eighteen Miles of Rainbow Beaches.”

REPLEN AGAIN: As to beach replenishment, the funds for scheduled seven-year spot fixes on LBI are tightly tucked within the proposed – and ready – 2023 federal budget. Once the budget is passed, barring any ruinous line-item vetoes, sand placing specificity will take place, meaning the Army Corps will be able to pinpoint the exact beach areas where it intends on pumping sand, based on any glaring needs.

Currently, not many Island areas are glaringly in need of Uncle Sam sand assists, which is great. In fact, many beaches are wide enough to host airline landing trips. Don’t ask. Sometimes things like that just jump into my head. Sufficed to say, many beaches are standing pat, sand-wise.

Of high import, I have been unknowingly misrepresenting the terms of the Barnegat Inlet to Little Egg Inlet Coastal Storm Risk Management project. As a member of media and a friend of replen ace former NJ Congressman Jim Saxton, I had been unusually close to the birth, planning, and fulfillment of the Island beachfill project. However, I had erroneously clung to the notion that the entire beach-fix effort had an assigned 50-year lifespan. Not so, per se. That timeframe has to do with periodic fixes. Per nap.usace.army.mil/, “The project also includes periodic nourishment at 7 year intervals for a period of 50 years.”

As to the fed commitment to keeping LBI’s beachline afloat, figuratively speaking, it’s quite far-reaching. In fact, the ultra-sweet deal whereby the feds take on the 75% lion’s share of the beach nourishing costs has no explicit end-time. Technically, it’s in perpetuity – providing perpetuity prevails. As the head honcho of the project told me, “It would take an Act of Congress to deauthorize it.” That offers a sense of its perpetuityness.

Even foreverness doesn’t prevent power moves by replenishment naysayers and revenue ravenous politicos trying to grab NJ’s beachfill money. Such a fund snatch wouldn’t be a walk in the Capitol Hill park, especially when NJ reps in DC hold powerful committee seats. Politicos who need the support of NJ legislators for their own funding matters would much rather stay on the cordial side of Pennsylvania Avenue cohorts.

It should be noted that NJ could likely pull the plug on the project by simply refusing to cover its state/county/local 25% share.

RUNDOWN: While we’re into the dogfish days of summer, fluking remains brisk when winds allow.

Regarding fluke regs: While I’m not a stickler, Fish and Wildlife folks are. Such is the case with the regulation requirement that an angler, after reaching his/her fluke bag limit, not being allowed to then fish for others who have yet to fill their fluke bag limits. Once you’ve got your legal share, you can’t continue to target fluke.

Let the kingfishing begin in earnest. Despite the weekend’s precipitous drop in beachline water temps, ushered in by honking south winds, the hearty kings are holding fast to the shoreline. They’re tiny bulldogs, as anyone fighting them on lighter gear will attest. What’s more, they accommodate catch-and-release very well, should you hook some smaller ones, possibly on their first spawn run. Yes, that’s a subtle request to be judicious about keeping smaller kingfish.

There are small bass in the bay and, less so, along the beachline. Bay bass are nighters, mainly on artificials. Surf stripers are early a.m. (plugs/jigs) and throughout the day on bait.

A quick culinary mention: Got an email from a surfcaster who tried dining on smooth dogfish meat. He ended up giving it to the cat. A touch of uppishness arose when he alleged that I had written they were decent eating. Au contraire, amigo. He likely saw my hyping of spiny dogs as decently tasty. The best I’ve ever done with smooth dogs involved taking a mallet to the meat, then stir frying small, softened pieces. I don’t own a cat. Actually, it wasn’t all that bad, just not for every palette.

Flashing back, I had ventured into smooth dog cuisine as part of a “trash fish” campaign, an effort that is taking on a new life. Huffington Post offered an article, “Trash Fish: A List of the Sustainable Seafood We Should Be Eating; Certain types of tuna, salmon and cod are overfished and not sustainable. Here’s a list of bycatch and less popular fish you should eat instead.” (huffpost.com/entry/trash-fish-sustainable-seafood_l_5d66bd27e4b022fbceb52439)

I am among the scant few experimenters to taste-test the tail meat of stargazers. It is tasty as all get-out. I’ve read it is an utmost delicacy in worldly areas, like Asia.

While far from rare, there is no way to target bottom-burrowing stargazers – except visually. Yes, visually. When I’m throwing a cast net from the banks of Little Egg Inlet (Holgate), I often see huge stargazers change positions on the bottom, kicking up a cloud of sand as they bust out and swim a short distance away, reburying. Drop any bait or jig where they’re buried and it’s fish on. Once pulled out of the bottom sand, they are tough fighters, though inclined to rebury and become dead weight.

After being landed, there is the unslight issue of stargazers being able to both poison and electrocute, very mildly in both cases. I have (purposely) felt their minimal shocking capacity. I’ve never been poked by their toxic spines, located above the gill plates. However, I’ve read it’s not even close to an ER grade jab, unlike pokes from its stonefish brethren.

NORTH JETTY NOTES: If you’re a newbie to NJ marine fishing, thinking about trying out the South Jetty – which I clumsily miscaptioned as “the North Jetty” in last week’s column photo – the park offers laminated regulation cards. They await within holders as you make the blue-carpet walk onto the concrete deck. Please take one … and commit to memory, especially dealing with tog, fluke, and black sea bass. Much thanks to the Division of Fish and Wildlife for supplying the cards.

Please, jettyites, DO NOT use the concrete deck’s many benches for cutting bait or cleaning fish. Each bench has a small plaque honoring a loved one. It’s disgusting and disrespectful to render a bench bloodied, smelly, and highly unsittable. Last week, I felt compelled to approach a miscreant who I saw bloodying up the slats. He did not take it well, but I didn’t care and he moved off. Turned out that I had known the dedicatee of that bench, though I hadn’t realized that until after the, uh, discussion. Please be advised it is not wise to do what I did, by going mano-a-mano with a bench bloodier. Simply alert park personnel.  jaymann@thesandpaper.net

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