Life’s a Beach, SO CLEAN IT UP!

All across America, it is Saturday, and most of the population is either sleeping in or watching TV. Well, on the Coastside, life is a little different. Many on the coast woke up early to go to the beach. Why? Because it is beach cleanup day! Today, the people of the coast got together and collected trash hidden away on the beach, so when people come, they don’t think it is all about just bringing your stuff and leaving it wherever you please.

You have to admit there has been one time where you or a friend has been to the beach, and just left something there. Well, it’s not safe for a number of reasons. By leaving stuff on the beach, you are leaving stuff that is harmful to other people, and even creatures of the ocean. For example, if you were a smoker, and you just dropped your cigarettes wherever you darn well pleased on the beach, a child could have picked it up and eaten it.

When my family and I went to Montara beach to clean part of it up, we found some of the most disgusting stuff all over it. The first thing I found was a ton of bottle caps, food wrappers, and popsicle sticks. My mom found about three large liquor bottles and many cups lodged into a crack in the rocks. Although, when it came to finding disgusting things, my dad won. He found a condom, a used condom. Listen, we’re glad that you’re using protection, but please pick it up—for the sake of all things right.

After we were all done cleaning our part of the beach, we went back to the meeting place, and turned in our bags. I learned from the people working there that 200 pounds of trash had already been turned in—all just one beach. Think about it, if 200 pounds came from one beach, how many pounds would come from the whole coast? A lot of people would shudder just thinking about it. Keep in mind also, that most of the trash you find on the beach is little bottle caps and plastic bottles. It takes a lot of small pieces of trash to come up with a big number like that.

Anyone can pick up trash! I saw a wide variety of people down on the beach today. Couples, dog walkers, and even little kids all joined together to help out. No one was in a bad mood, and everyone wanted to help. It shows that if my little sister, who’s 3, can help out, then so can you. It never hurts to show you care.

Here is the way that I think about it: If you are going to take the time to try to hide the trash that you brought down to the beach, it would probably take just as much energy to carry it up off the beach to throw it away. If you love the coast, and you love going down to visit the beach for a day, then you should care enough to pick up your trash and throw it away. It also wouldn’t take up a lot of room to bring a trash bag, so you could put your trash in there and then just carry that up. Maybe you pick out more then you came with, just to be helpful too.

No matter how big or how small the trash is your leaving on the beach, it is still trash, and still needs to be thrown away.

Here’s the final count of material collected from Montara State Beach this morning, from Kevin Stokes of MontaraBeach.com, who led the cleanup at that beach.

Number of volunteers: 24

Weight of Trash collected: 200lbs

Weight of recyclable materials: 60lbs

Trash collected included:

• 8 condoms
• 150 plastic lids
• 424 cigarette butts
• 241 plastic bags
• 72 glass bottles
• 70 plastic bags

Meanwhile, the Mercury News reports that statewide, "More than 40,000 volunteers collected an excess of 715,000 pounds of trash, of which about 62,000 pounds are recyclable, said Eben Schwartz, who runs the event for the state coastal commission. And those are just the early projections, he said."

Click "read more" to see the grossest things we found on the beach. Remember, you were warned!

Cheri Parr

Cheri Parr

Cheri Parr

Cheri Parr

Cheri Parr