The Enviros Take Action at the Coastal Cleanup

We attended the Coastal Cleanup that was held by the California Coastal Commission at Dockweiler beach on September 22, 2013. The sponsor of the Coastal Cleanup event, Heal the Bay, assists with the event by gathering citizen scientists every year on the national beach clean-up day in order to clean debris from coasts across the nation. Though there were many ongoing beach cleanups that day, we attended Dockweiler State Beach. After signing up, we turned in our liability form, we picked up a bucket, a tally sheet, and we were ready to clean the beach. On the tally sheet, we recorded all types of debris that we found on the beach. Some of the debris included small objects, ranging from bottle caps to baby diapers. While we were participating in the coastal cleanup, we asked the members of the Los Angeles Waterkeepers about various issues involving beaches around the nation. When we were asked “What is the most abundant substance found on the shores of Dockweiler Beach?” the answer was cigarette buds. This is a growing problem in California because trash that is left on the shore of the ocean eventually travels to deep parts of the ocean where it may be consumed by various organisms. Thus, beach attendees should make sure that they properly dispose their trash.

Throughout the day, we walked the beach for hours in search of trash. By the end of the day, we had collected enough trash to fill half of a standard size trash bag. We gave the trash bag to the members of the Los Angeles Waterkeepers in order to weigh the bag. As a reward for contributing to the event, they gave each of us a gift card for a free meal at Chipotle restaurants. Overall, this was a very rewarding experience because we took part in an effort to clean our nation's coasts. As a result of this experience, we look forward to participating in future Coastal Cleanup events.