California Coastal Cleanup

California Coastal Cleanup Day has become one of the largest volunteer events in the world.

Last Saturday, organizations and individuals along the California coast took part in Ocean California Coastal Cleanup Day to remove trash and debris from the California beaches and waterways. In 2010, over 82,500 volunteers removed more than 1.2 million pounds of trash and recyclables from our beaches, lakes, and waterways.

Personally what affected me the most was floating styrofoam it was everywhere, but in such tiny little pieces it made it nearly impossible to pick up. Styrofoam has a useful life of mere hours or days, but exists in the environment for hundreds or thousands of years. It can be carried by wind, washed into storm drains, and making its way to the ocean contributing to mass of floating plastic debris. Marine mammals mistake it for food, and it remains in their guts, often causing death by starvation. Identifying and recording the sources of the debris, helps to change the behaviors that allow it to reach the ocean in the first place.