This story has been modified to clarify the employment status of Chris Verlinde, who is now employed by Santa Rosa County.
When Jennifer Starr arrived in Florida, she was injured in a motorcycle accident, leaving her physically and emotionally damaged.
“After the accident, a lot of things changed for me,” she said. “It’s like the old me died. I had to find the new me.”
She found a new sense of purpose in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, or more accurately, in the men and women who gathered every day to fish from the Navarre Beach Pier.
Starr collects the fishing line that responsible anglers deposit in monofilament recycling bins strategically located on the longest piers in the Gulf of Mexico. She takes this job very seriously, and for good reason. Countless birds, turtles and marine mammals are killed or injured every year when they become entangled in fishing lines.
“We’re seeing a lot of sea turtles getting tangled in fishing lines,” said Ralph Agnew of Navarre Beach Sea Turtle Rescue. “Last year we rescued a turtle that was so encased that we had to amputate its fins.”
Agnew said fishermen who inadvertently hook a turtle can reel out hundreds of feet of monofilament before the line breaks or an angler cuts it off. It may coat the animal or end up being swallowed. Pelicans diving for bait or great blue herons lingering on docks trying to steal food are also easy to get entangled.
Starr worked hard and raised children in the Detroit area her entire life as a single mother until a motorcycle accident in 2009 left her with a brain injury and other trauma. Needing something, she moved here in 2022 to be near her grandson, and as a result her family moved to Germany with the army.
“I had to find a purpose,” she said.
She was used to recycling in Michigan, but it was disturbing that there was so little recycling along the Emerald Coast.
“It’s so beautiful here. It’s really disturbing to realize they don’t recycle here,” she said.
Kathy Holmes, executive director of the Navarre Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Center, and Carmen Reynolds, a member of the center’s board of directors, helped Starr find the perfect niche.
“She wanted to volunteer in some way, and we had to figure out what she could do. She was kind of introverted,” Holmes said. “When we talked to her about recycling, she said, ‘I can do this. I want to do this.'”
After finding a volunteer willing to empty several recycling bins along the Navarre Marina, folks at the Sea Turtle Conservation Center quickly realized the bins themselves were defective.
They are constructed from six-inch CVC pipe, which is covered with an elbow that twists on and off so visitors on the dock can lower their fishing line into the water.
But the hole in the top is big enough and people will be people and almost everything will end up in the bin. Everything from half-empty beer bottles to fast food wrappers and even dirty diapers.
Holmes said that when Starr moved the bottom of the bin to collect the fishing line, “all the nausea came out with the monofilament.”
“Getting monofilament is disgusting,” she said.
So, with Chris Verlinde’s approval, Holmes and her team modified the dock collection box to make the sedimentation tubes smaller, making the line removal process more primitive.
While improving the recycling bin operations, the Sea Turtle Conservation Center team also decided to upgrade its appearance.
“Dumpsters are boring,” Holmes said.
Therefore, using vinyl packaging, the bins are painted with images of mermaids or sea kings to make them more eye-catching.
For Starr, collecting the monofilament from the dock bin is just the beginning of the long process required to hand it over to Verlinde for recycling.
She collected the wires and placed them in a trash can before taking them to her home in the Navarre area. There, she soaked it in hot water and terpineol, then removed it and spread it out on a table to dry. She then cut off the hook and string, cleaning out any remaining debris, and soaked it twice in hot water and pine oil.
She met Virinder at the dock when she got several large bags filled with thread. Verlinde’s job is to count the quantities collected and then send them to a recycling facility in Berkeley, Iowa, where the line is converted into items such as tackle boxes.
Since starting her job at the Sea Turtle Conservation Center in 2022, Starr has been responsible for collecting and recycling 31.6-pound fishing line. That equates to about 28.9 miles of fishing line being blocked from entering the Gulf of Mexico, Verlinde said.
“She’s an amazing person,” Verinder said of Starr. “We’re excited to have her.”
Agnew said Starr’s work combines with efforts by rescue groups to educate fishermen on how to best respond after hooking a turtle to at least minimize the amount of rope entering the water and best to remove the turtle. Taking it to wherever the hook is and the line can be removed safely has paid off.
“It reduces the queues we have outside,” he said. “I see fishermen recycling their lines.”
For Starr, the work she does is a perfect fit for her lifestyle. She said that if she stayed home because she was hurt or had a bad day, no one would hurt her, and the words she heard most often were ones expressing gratitude for the things that helped her feel whole again.
“I’m grateful that I’m helping wildlife, keeping things out of landfills, and getting this fishing line to a place where it can be reused,” she said. “It means a lot to me to do this on my own. I’m really lucky to be here and have such beautiful scenery around me.”
“I can’t change the world, but I can change a small part of myself.”
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