Meet the guy who's cleaning up a Miami nature preserve one piece of trash at a time.

Meet the guy who's cleaning up a Miami nature preserve one piece of trash at a time.
Andrew Otazo has been cleaning up Bear Cut Nature Preserve inch by inch and says he's collected over 2,000 pounds of garbage.

Andrew Otazo has been cleaning up Bear Cut Nature Preserve inch by inch and says he's collected over 2,000 pounds of garbage.

After years of exploring Key Biscayne's Bear Cut Nature Preserve, Andrew Otazo looked into what could be done about the trash that covered the mangroves. When he realized that local government wouldn't help and local press wouldn't tell the story, he took it upon himself to slog through the swamps in the Miami preserve to clean it up one heavy duty garbage bag at a time.

"Over a span of 23 days, I've picked up 2,015 pounds of trash," he said.

Andrew walks past sunbathers on Key Biscayne's North Beach, to get to the mangroves and quick mud farther inland, where — armed with "giant tweezers," a knife and a whistle, he methodically picks items that have been left in the swamp or washed up at high tide over the course of several decades. The debris includes everything from used condoms to beer cans to car bumpers.

"I'll do my work here, I'll pass away, maybe other people will keep doing it, maybe not," Andrew said. "And this place will get full of trash again."

The Philip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science is getting people to join Andrew April 21, 2018. Sign up here:
facebook.com/events/1685861141502258/

Subscribe to Andrew's YouTube channel to keep up with his this and other adventures in South Florida nature.

Nicolás Antonio Jiménez is the founder of DADE. He’s always working through his rotation of writer, podcast host, podcast producer, photographer and editor hats.

A Miami native and graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, Nick’s background includes work in democracy promotion, human rights advocacy, content marketing and magazine journalism (most recently as senior editor of Cigar Snob).