Stretching from the quiet creeks of Waddell Beach to the jagged coastline of Big Sur, 4,584 volunteers swarmed beaches and rivers around Monterey Bay to pick up garbage and recyclables last Saturday, Sept 17, as part of International Coastal Cleanup Day. Save Our Shores crews working at 81 cleanup locations in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties removed more than 17,000 pounds of trash, about 3,200 pounds of it recyclable. “It’s amazing how many people come out,” says Colleen Bednarz, communications director for Save Our Shores.
International Coastal Cleanup Day is celebrated in more than 100 countries around the world. In Santa Cruz it’s the rivers, perhaps less tantalizing to volunteers than their coastal alternatives, that are becoming an increasing focus of Save Our Shores, which organizes the local effort. In rivers, volunteers have the opportunity to intercept trash on levees and in channels before it enters the ocean, where it wreaks havoc with marine wildlife. “We always let people know that the inland sites and the river sites need the most impact,” says Bednarz.
Last year, volunteers gathered about 20,000 pounds of trash, nearly 3,000 more than this year. While Save Our Shores had 1,500 more volunteers in 2010, Bednarz also cites cleaner rivers and beaches as a reason for the dropping trash count.
Congressman Sam Farr attended cleanup efforts in Carmel. Assemblymember Luis Alejo helped volunteers pick trash off the Pajaro River. “It is exciting to see such a large group of Watsonville residents helping out today, understanding that the trash we find here would otherwise end up in the Monterey Bay,” says Alejo.
Bednarz says rivers are an important channel in the organization’s widening focus. “People feel more drawn to go to a cleanup at their favorite beach,” says Bednarz. “But at the same time, people have been doing this for years and years and sometimes want to go to the next stepping stone and need the most help.”
Statewide figures Monday morning showed that almost 63,000 volunteers along the California coast gathered 523,000 pounds of trash and 68,000 pounds of recycling. Those figures, based on 80 percent of cleanup sites reporting, were expected to grow as more info came in.
