Within 90 minutes of searching I’d unearthed three plastic candy wrappers, six broken plastic bottle caps, eleven newspaper ties, one straw wrapper, five pieces of fishing line, ten pieces of unidentifiable broken plastic, one fast food container, ten Styrofoam pieces, one Styrofoam cup, one large woven plastic bag, nine cigarette butts, and one cigar tip! (Photo by Courtney Hayden)
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Blog post by Courtney Hayden April 28, 2012
On last Saturday April, 21st, Sierra Club Green Home asked you to join us for an exciting day of beach cleanup with Heal the Bay. The cleanup took place in Santa Monica, California in celebration of our commitment to Earth Day.
The daylong event earned me free admission to Heal the Bay’s beach level aquarium and opened my eyes to the startling realities of shoreline pollution. At first, combing the beach was more about weaving through crowds of tourists and avoiding crashing waves than picking up litter. My eyes could not see the bottle caps, plastic pieces or Styrofoam fragments camouflaged in the shifting sand.
My beach cleanup bag flopped in the wind pathetically for a solid ten minutes. Occasionally, another volunteer would mill past and we would happily discuss our reasons for dedicating a cloudy Saturday to cleaning up Santa Monica. Each time, I’d subtly eye their bag and…each one was full! Why couldn’t I see the waste brought to shore by storm drains, left behind my beach-goers, and washed ashore by the ocean?
I kept my eyes darting back and forth across the sand until I suddenly began to notice small fragments of trash poking out of the it. I’d been looking for large items that would catch my attention, but when I started to look for abnormalities in the sand, a new and troubling world appeared. Within 90 minutes of searching I’d unearthed three plastic candy wrappers, six broken plastic bottle caps, eleven newspaper ties, one straw wrapper, five pieces of fishing line, ten pieces of unidentifiable broken plastic, one fast food container, ten Styrofoam pieces, one Styrofoam cup, one large woven plastic bag, nine cigarette butts, and one cigar tip!
Hundreds of families ate lunch and built sand castles as I cleaned up, and no one complained about litter ruining their Saturday. In my opinion, it is easy to ignore litter on Santa Monica Beach because it is generally small and unobtrusive. It took ten minutes for me to begin noticing the startling amount of trash littering one of my favorite beaches!
After my experience with Heal the Bay, I will be paying closer attention in the city, in the mountains, and on the beach. I will be open to the truth about how healthy my favorite places really are, because sometimes the environmental ailments are not on the surface.
Based on my experience, I encourage Sierra Club Green Home readers to participate in a local clean-up. If you are located in Los Angeles and interested in working with Heal the Bay, please check out their website and find a volunteering event. Maybe I will see you there!
For related article, see: Clean Up Santa Monta Pier, Get Aquarium Tickets
© 2012 SCGH, LLC.
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