Wheelie bin washes up on UK beach after 5,000-mile journey
A wheelie bin found on the south coast of England appears to have traveled 5,000 miles across the Atlantic from the United States.
Beachcomber Ryan Stalker found the black trash can with the words ‘Baldwin County, Alabama’ written on the side and some goose barnacles attached to it.
Crustaceans are known to live in warm, tropical seas such as the Caribbean and cannot survive in the colder waters around the UK.
Ryan did some research on social media and soon received responses from Alabama residents; They then used the unique code on the bin to confirm that it came from the seaside town of Fort Morgan.
They believe the wheelie bin was washed out to sea and entered the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Sally in September 2020.
It took more than five years to find its way east across the Atlantic, coming ashore during winter storms.
Remarkably, Ryan, 46, even received an apology from the local garbage department in Alabama for his beach litter.
Ryan, from Weymouth, said: “After Storm Ingrid I thought there would be a good chance of finding some debris in Bowleaze Bay.
“I saw the wheelie bin straight away but it was bigger than the ones here.
“I saw some barnacles attached to it, so I figured it must have been in the water for a while, and then I turned it over and read the inscription.
“I put it on social media and a few people from Alabama saw it and said it was one of the ties there.
“They thought it was probably lost in a major hurricane in 2020.
“It was definitely in the Caribbean because that’s where goose barnacles are found.”
After being contacted online by the garbage department in Alabama, she was asked to send them the code of the trash can so they could identify it.
He said: “They contacted me and apologized for washing up on the beach, I thought it was nice of them to do that but it wasn’t necessary, it was an accident.
“They asked me to get some codes and I confirmed that it was one of the tricycle bins, or cans as they call them, that were lost in Fort Morgan, Alabama, in Hurricane Sally in 2020.”
Ryan took the trash can home and it’s sitting in his backyard while he decides what to do with it.
