By Theresa-Marie Wilson ~
The recent Coastal Cleanup Day netted about 2,000 more pounds of trash than last year. Two locations in the Five Cities area ranked at the top of the list for most collected in the county.
Nearly 1,000 volunteers armed with work gloves, trash bags and buckets battled debris at 29 beaches and inland waterways during the 31st Annual California Coastal Cleanup Day run in conjunction with the International Coastal Cleanup Day event organized by the Ocean Conservancy. The Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo County (ECOSLO) has organized local efforts since 2005.
In SLO County cleanups took place primarily at coastal locations, from San Simeon Cove down to Oso Flaco, but also included was Lopez Lake.
In all an estimated 5,273 pounds of trash and an additional 163 pounds of recyclable materials were collected.
“The heaviest area in general for trash per poundage was Pirate’s Cove in Avila,” said Mary Ciesinski, ECOSLO’s Executive Director. “Lopez Lake was also extremely heavy.”
If something good could be attributed to the drought we are experiencing, it could be that deeper cleanup efforts were conducted at Lopez Lake where a bicycle and metal chains were among the trash collected.
“If there is a silver lining to the drought, it’s that we are able to get some things at the bottom of the lake,” Ciesinski said.
As is typically the case, the most prevalent items found during the countywide 3-hour cleanup were cigarette butts (8,000), followed by food wrapper (3,000), and plastic bottle caps (1,600).
Separate from the bottle caps and of concern, were 3,333 small pieces of plastic that were found.
“It could be pieces from anything,” Ciesinski said. “It could be from a child’s toy or a food container. Plastic is one of those horrible products of our society in that it just breaks and breaks down until it is almost in sand form.”
In addition to toxicity in the ocean, fish might mistake these particles for food and it could thus be introduced into the food chain.
“If you think about the circle of things, and you are eating fish, it is going to be in fish,” Ciesinski said. “Plastic finds its way back to us even though we are producing it.”
Statewide about 54,000 volunteers hauled out 548,450 pounds of trash and an additional 65,738 pounds of recyclable materials, for a total of 614,188 pounds or 307 tons at 900 sites in 54 counties.
The majority of that trash is not from careless beachgoers but most originates elsewhere and makes its way to beaches via rivers and storm drains.
“About 70 percent of the trash that ends up in the ocean doesn’t come from beachgoers or ships at sea,” Ciesinski said adding that those two categories contribute about 15% each.
“What we do has an impact. It goes back to what we should be taught as kids, even if it is not your trash—pick it up. Take care of the area that we love so much. Even though a food wrapper in the middle of the street two hours away from the coast doesn’t seem like it is going to end up in the ocean, it may. It may go down the drain, and all the water leads to the ocean.”
The California Coastal Commission Website states that the vast majority of trash in the ocean is from pedestrians, motorists, industrial discharges in the form of plastic pellets and powders, and poor garbage management such as ill-fitting trash can lids.
Trash can fatally harm marine wildlife through entanglement, ingestion and disruption of habitat. Marine debris can also be a danger to human health. Nails, glass, and syringes on the beach can cause physical harm to beach-goers. Additionally, trash in our waterways increases the amount of pathogens and chemicals, impacting water quality.
In 2014, nearly 67,000 volunteers removed more than 1,190,000 pounds of trash and recyclables from California’s beaches, lakes, and waterways.
Ciesinski said the need for Coastal Cleanup Day is greater than ever. A study published recently in Science Magazine showed that an average of 8.4 million metric tons of plastic litter enters the world’s oceans every year. That’s the equivalent of 18.5 billion pounds of plastic annually – enough to cover every single stretch of coastline around the world.
For more information, visit www.ecoslo.org.
