MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - The famous pool of sprinkles at the Museum of Ice Cream in Miami Beach may be great for photos, but the city says it could also be ruining the environment.
A video posted to YouTube by VolunteerCleanup.org shows the plastic sprinkles down the street from the museum’s entrance.
“People go take selfies in a huge vat of plastic sprinkles which get caught in their clothes which fall off onto the street and sidewalk when they leave,” the organization wrote in a Facebook post.
The video shows various plastic sprinkles scattered on the sidewalk outside of the museum, which is located on the 3400 block of Collins Ave. More sprinkles could also be found several blocks away.
“When it rains, [the sprinkles] are going to go straight into the street, into the bay,” a man is heard saying in the video.
This isn’t the first time the popular art installation, which has popped up in several big cities around the country, has faced criticism over the tiny pieces of plastic. A California environmental group also voiced their concerns over the sprinkles’ effect on the environment due to the museum’s San Francisco location.
“If it’s on the sidewalk, it most likely goes into storm drains and then into the ocean,” Eva Holman from the Surfrider Foundation told the San Francisco Gate. “My 5-year-old would think it’s candy. Why wouldn’t a bird on the street think it’s something to consume?”
According to the Sun-Sentinel, the City of Miami Beach has slapped museum organizers with a $1,000 fine for creating an environmental hazard in the form of their beloved pool of sprinkles. A second violation was issued Wednesday, this time with a $2,000 fine.
Miami Beach city spokeswoman Melissa Berthier told the newspaper that the museum is “putting measures into place to mitigate the conditions, including but not limited to, the hiring of a cleaning crew, instituting check points to remove sprinkles indoors, vacuums to remove sprinkles that escape, and relocating the pool to the beginning instead of the end of the museum.”
A museum spokesperson told the Miami Herald that they are in the process of developing a biodegradable sprinkle.
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