They are often found, sometimes living stacked on top of one another, rocks, on horseshoe crabs, shells and on dock pilings.
Close-ups of what could be anything: cannon barrels, dock pilings, the flagpole.
Indeed, the Rutgers scientists foresee a coming rain of plastics in public projects - as telephone poles, electrical line supports and dock pilings.
They hang out on dock pilings and divebomb for fish in the shallows.
Another hundred yards and they could make out the faintly shimmering outline of the dock pilings.
But her body hadn't been claimed by the sea, it had become wedged in the dock pilings.
The boy in the outboard cast off the towline, and the Chris-Craft bumped against the dock pilings.
A few dock pilings are still visible from the air, but most of the town was reclaimed by the sand dunes on which it was built.
The water slapped lullingly against the dock pilings and against the hulls of the moored boats.
"Purple heart comes from Central America and is often used for dock pilings because it is resistant to decay," he said.