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What’s in the bag at a beach cleanup speaks volumes about how beachgoers protect their environment.

Sandals, water bottles, swimming floats, chairs, sand shovels and soda cans are items beach enthusiasts often carry with them. Most people are thoughtful and take them away when they leave.

However, on April 26, these and many more items were found discarded on Tigertail Beach. In all, 11 bags of trash and various oversized items were collected in the Friends of Tigertail beach cleanup organized by Marco Islander Susan LaGrotta.

The cleanup was part of the 18th Annual Bay Days sponsored by Keep Collier Beautiful, a countywide cooperation with local groups during the national Great American Clean-up. The county donated T-shirts for volunteers at the event.

“By far the most common items are cigarette butts, fishing line and clothing,” said Debbie Roddy, the group’s president. “We find unusual stuff, too, like boat fenders, used diapers, dock parts and credit cards.”

Starting at 8 a.m., more than 30 volunteers, garbage bags in hand, headed out from Tigertail’s boardwalk. They traversed the sand around the lagoon, Sand Dollar Island and Gulf shores gathering any refuse left behind by visitors. Later, they returned with trash and treasures.

A ball of mangled fishing line with several sharply barbed lures was an early find. The mass of filament appeared to have been on the beach for some time.

“It is a problem for wildlife,” said its finder Ken Kubat, also a volunteer at the Nature Conservancy in Naples. “If you see a pelican or shorebird without a leg, chances are it got tangle in fishing line. When distressed birds are brought to the Conservancy, we x-ray their stomachs and many times find fishing line with lures imbedded there.”

Tigertail’s boardwalk includes a receptacle for disposing fishing lines that are no longer of use or those left behind or wash onshore and found by visitors.

“A lot of the trash floats up from the Gulf,” said Roddy. “Some items we find are left behind accidentally.” While she talked, Jack Maguire picked up a rusted folding chair he spotted on the beach.

Carol Madison arrived at the drop spot with her bag of debris. Included in it were water bottles, Styrofoam coffee cups and a toilet paper holder presumably from a boat.

“I found more than I thought I would,” Madison said as she displayed a gallon water bottle.

Harriette Tax felt differently.

“This is the cleanest I’ve seen it in 6 years,” she said. “Hopefully, it’s because people are taking better care of the beach.”

By mid-morning, collectors arrived with some of the most interesting finds of the day. Rebecca Shopay exhibited her haul including underwear, shoes, a canvas sun visor, a Bic lighter and a homemade water pipe or bong used for smoking narcotic substances such as marijuana.

The most intriguing find was a geo-cache, a stash hidden for use in a game requiring a Global Positioning System or GPS. This one was a plastic jar titled “Tiger Tail (sic) Treasure” and filled with trinkets and a finder’s logbook. It contained a start date of March 18, 2008, and a list of eight treasure hunters who had visited the cache.

“Geo-caching is usually a harmless pursuit that links modern technology to the thrill of an old-fashion treasure hunt,” said Gail Fox, an employee at Everglades National Park. “We don’t allow items like this to be left in our park, but enthusiasts can play the game using natural landmarks like a large tree.”

For this geo-cache, leaving it in a Collier County Park also is not allowed.

“We clean up anything that is not natural,” said Camden Smith from Collier County’s information center. “We want to keep our parks all natural so visitors can recreate with nature undisturbed.”

Information about geo-caching is available at geocaching.com where game players are instructed to look for game rules and information before leaving their booty.

Gary and Carolyn Bookart, visiting Tigertail Beach for the first time from Clearwater Beach, Fla., were passing by and thought they would join the clean-up. They collected rope, cellophane and fishing line.

“It’s not always trash we find,” said volunteer Dr. Marty Roddy, science teacher at PACE Center for Girls in Immokalee and retired toxicologist. “One time a young boy found seven cervical vertebrae from a bird. It’s rare to find all seven, and these were clean and in good condition.”

Friends of Tigertail has one more board meeting before adjoining for the summer. For more information on summer programs or to learn about membership, go to www.friendsoftigertail.com.