Volunteers took to Rhode Island shores Saturday for the Audubon Society International Coastal Cleanup. In Warwick, crews scoured the sands at Oakland Beach, Conimicut and City Park beaches, picking up trash, cigarette butts, storm debris and more.

At Oakland Beach, volunteers Kimberly Garofolo and Bradley Chase said they were finding a lot of food wrappers and “tons and tons” of plastic and glass bottles and cans.

Heading up the effort at Oakland Beach was mother and daughter team Sandra Davidson and Brenda Brien, who have been volunteering for 10 years. Davidson and Brien served as the captain and co-captain of the Oakland Beach portion of the clean-up.

Brien said that over the years she hasn’t seen much of an improvement in the amount of litter people discard on the beach.

“There’s a slight improvement in that cigarettes are lessening,” she said, “but I’m not sure people are getting better [with littering.]”

Roughly 35 volunteers showed up to lend a hand at Oakland Beach, filling about 15 yard waste bags and a half dozen plastic trash bags with debris and trash. Among the volunteers were Tom Lynn, a teacher at Gorton Junior High, and a group of fellow Warwick teachers, Cub Scout Pack 383, the AT&T Pioneers and other individuals.

Though they get repeat volunteers from year to year, Brien and Davidson said it was helpful to have such a beautiful day, and a few beach strollers happened to stop and offer their time.

The women realize how important it is to volunteer to clean a beach in their community. The Audubon Society of Rhode Island requires volunteers to keep a tally of trash they pick up, and individual reports are totaled together. The result is a rough estimate of the types and volumes of trash local beaches acquire.

Davidson said that their tally of cigarette butts found on beaches was a reason that Rhode Island banned smoking on the beach.

“At least we know we’re doing something good,” she said.

Brien said they used to see what seemed like billions of cigarette butts, but the improvement, if slight, is still comforting.

“At least it’s down to millions of cigarette butts,” she laughed.

At Conimicut Point, volunteers also complained of seeing cigarettes but found many more bottles and cans. They also found some odd items like a rug, a shoe and a piece of a sandbox.

At both beaches, debris from Tropical Storm Irene filled yard waste bags to the brim.

Conimicut also saw specific groups of volunteers, including Cub Scout Pack 183 and children from the Trudeau Center.

“I don’t think people are getting better about littering,” said beach captain Marcia Pena, whose team collected about a half dozen loaded yard waste bags of trash and debris.

Jennie Finn, who helped to organize the group of volunteers from the Trudeau Center, said she learned a valuable lesson at the clean-up.

“You could be here for two weeks and not get it all.”