BERKELEY — Saturday marked the 40th anniversary of California Coastal Cleanup Day, an annual ritual for many people.
As we learn more about how the planet works, it’s becoming clear that what happens on land directly affects the health of the oceans. On Saturday, on both sides of the bay, volunteers cast a wide net to find even the tiniest bits of trash.
Berkeley has been organizing a cleanup along the coast for more than 30 years, and nearly 500 people showed up to help on Saturday.
“It’s that one day a year when people come together to help and clean up stuff from our coastline,” said organizer Sammi Orth.
A group of young friends from Berkeley and 7-year-old Vivian had no trouble finding items to pick up.
“There’s trash here!” Vivian said as she pulled a plastic wrapper off some rocks along the shore. “I was surprised there was so much trash,” she added. “It was a lot of trash. We got this bucket full and that bucket full.”
For one group of children it was quite a challenge to find and they were a little concerned about it.
“There are animals that are in the trash area too and it’s kind of like their home,” said 10-year-old Amelia. “It’s like when my mom walks through the house and she asks, ‘Why is there so much trash everywhere?’ And that’s probably how the animals feel.”
Nine-year-old Autumn said she jumped at the chance to do some cleaning because it was fun and she loved the Earth. “And apparently we’re supposed to be the generation that has to save the Earth. So yeah, I have to do my part!” she said.
That’s a lot of pressure to put on a 9-year-old, but that’s the earth that adults leave behind. Autumn said she gets angry when she sees what people leave behind on the ground.
“They’re eating lunch and they’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve got a little bit of trash on the ground. Oh, who cares, it’s just this big.’ We found eight pieces that are this big!” she said.
About 200 people showed up at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, and organizers said many of their volunteers return year after year.
“Hopefully we can get people to continue to develop that habit, because the trash, the garbage, is going to keep coming back,” said Vince Yuen, director of a group called Refuse Refuse. “But as long as we keep coming back, we can prevent a lot of it from polluting the environment.”
The biggest concern, of course, is plastic waste. Even the smallest pieces pose a danger because they break down into small pieces that marine animals consume as food. Most of the trash on the beach and in the rocks isn’t necessarily dumped on the coast. It comes from inland neighborhoods and gets washed down storm drains when it rains. Back in Berkeley, Pete Guinosso said he does garbage pickups in his neighborhood four times a year just to keep it from ending up in the bay.
“There’s a great quote that says, ‘If everybody would sweep their front door, the whole world would be clean,'” Guinosso said. “So this work that we’re doing here is sweeping our front door, you know, in a broader sense. We’re trying to help the environment by taking care of our front door.”
In Berkeley, Coastal Cleanup Day is also a research project. Volunteers fill out cards detailing what they’ve found, and each bag of trash is weighed before it’s tossed into a large dumpster. During Saturday’s cleanup, Berkeley reported collecting more than 1,000 pounds of trash from a three-mile stretch of shoreline. That information will be forwarded to the California Coastal Commission to help build a case for stricter policies on single-use plastics as the state works to get its house — and front porch — in order.
John Ramos
