Miami Beach boasts a manic, cosmopolitan nightlife, inventive plastic surgery and a glorious beach that has become a spring-break destination for high-strung collegians.

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Another time I got a beach towel and plastic water bottle emblazoned with the Forbes logo.

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In 1994, 530 items of plastic were found per kilometre of beach compared to more than 1, 000 in 2004.

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More than 1, 600 plastic bottles have been cleared from an Isle of Man beach by a local beach cleaning organisation.

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Manhattan Beach, CA and Bellingham, WA already banned plastic bags in grocery stores and paper bags in Bellingham cost an extra 5 cents.

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Adding to the experience are the free plastic buckets and spades for making sandcastles, portable goals for beach soccer, nets for volleyball and even giant touch-screen internet terminals on the boardwalk.

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But when you look a little closer, you see dozens of men in white hazmat suits stuffing soiled material into plastic bags, which are then piled onto all-terrain vehicles and taken off the beach.

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The company has trained additional beach cleanup groups in Southern California and on the East Coast to collect and sort the plastic themselves.

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