Florida Aquarium offering discounted tickets if you recycle your Gasparilla beads

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The Florida Aquarium is offering discounted tickets if you recycle your Gasparilla beads to keep beads out of the Bay.

For every five-gallon bucket of recycled beads, guests can receive 50% off one adult general admission ticket. This offer is available from Jan. 20 through Feb. 11.

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As part of the City of Tampa’s Bead-Free Bay initiative, the aquarium hopes this will keep harmful plastic out of our waters, which can be harmful to marine wildlife. Throwing beads into the Bay is also illegal under Florida Statute 403.413.

All of the beads collected will be donated to the MacDonald Training Center, which will clean and repackage the beads for future use. This nonprofit helps adults with disabilities prepare for the workforce through vocational training, employment pathways, and life-enrichment opportunities, the aquarium said.

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“The Florida Aquarium is committed to reducing plastic pollution, and the beads that are so synonymous with this celebration often find their way into our waterways where they can be ingested by, and harm, wildlife,” Dr. Debborah Luke, Senior Vice President of Conservation at The Florida Aquarium said. “These beads, like all other plastics, break down into microplastics which never decompose and remain present in the ecosystem for hundreds of years.”

Every year, hundreds of beads are pulled out of our local waters.

For more information on the Gasparilla Bead recycling initiative, visit their website.

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