It’s not just fishing floats, derelict ships or docks that are washing ashore on Northwest beaches as debris from the March 2011 tsunami in Japan crosses the Pacific.

There’s also foam – chunks, slabs and smaller pieces of plastic foam insulation, apparently torn loose by the tsunami.

Ocean Park resident Ellen Anderson is founding member of the Grassroots Garbage Gang. The volunteers pick up trash along the Long Beach Peninsula.

Anderson told The Seattle Times ( http://is.gd/qn8ySj) that during one two-day period this month she collected more than 650 pieces of foam from a one-mile stretch of beach.

In a survey Sunday the Grassroots Garbage Gang counted more than 6,700 pieces of foam along a 13-miles stretch of beach.

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