The Weird Objects People Leave on New Jersey Beaches Will Have You Saying, “Yeah, that seems about right”
A voodoo doll, a pregnancy test, and denture powder were among the recently found items during a cleanup of New Jersey beaches, along with lots of insecurity over whether New York’s beaches were better.
By Gabe Herman · May 3, 2024
Disclaimer: While this article is sunbathing on a beach of facts, it is surrounded by dirty discarded syringes of satire. Tread carefully.
You won’t believe the strange items some people leave behind on New Jersey beaches - on second thought, you might believe it because there are plenty of odd people out there, and it is New Jersey, after all.
The environmental nonprofit Clean Ocean Action reports every year on their beach cleanup efforts, including strange things found by volunteers, which last year included various auto parts, a plaster hand, and an 8 x 10-foot rug, presumably to protect against all that icky sand everywhere.
Curiously, someone left a dustpan at the beach. Perhaps it was a confused person who wondered, “What’s all this sand doing here? I should clean all this up.” One can only assume that he probably quit at some point, realizing it was a futile effort, and then went to Arby’s for a late lunch.
“I try not to be too judgmental about the strange objects people leave,” said a tolerant volunteer. “You’ve got to cut people some slack, especially if they have to live in New Jersey in the first place.”
Notably, no gold or silver was found on the beaches. The only logical explanation is that those quirky people who scan beaches with metal detectors must have already found all of the precious metals, striking it rich and then retiring to a life of luxury and ease on an island in the South Pacific.
As for some of the other odd objects found, one volunteer had a grand theory that pieced many of them together. “I’m not one to speculate,” she said, “but it seems clear to me that the voodoo doll was being used to influence the result of the pregnancy test, and then when it worked, everyone celebrated by cooking with the food fryer, eating pineapple and rice, and using whoopee cushions, because those are all things I make sure to bring to every party I go to.” After this explanation, perhaps the list of found items isn’t so strange after all.
"A pregancy test at the beach isn't odd to me. I mean, everyone pees in the water at the beach anyway, so why not bring a pregnancy test and take care of that while you're there?"
One bright spot was that there were no driving manuals littered, with page after page of rules and tips for how to drive responsibly and safely while not putting pedestrians and other cars in danger. It is unclear if such a manual even exists in New Jersey, and whether anyone in the state would bother to read it anyway.
Among the most common objects found during the beach cleanups were various plastic objects, cigarettes, and bottle caps. While the number of plastic items at beaches has decreased in recent years, perhaps thanks to the state banning plastic bags a couple of years ago, plastics are still a big problem and are about 80% of the garbage found on beaches. It’s important to remember that plastics are not biodegradable, and neither are car batteries, Baby Yoda dolls, jockstraps, tires, and lots of other random stuff that people have been leaving on the beaches.