California Coastal Cleanup Day is an annual event where tens of thousands of volunteers clean up trash from beaches across California to improve the marine environment. It is the largest garbage collection and takes place on the third Saturday in September. The Coastal Commission provides bags, gloves, and tools to volunteers, and the program educates people about waste and safe disposal. Anyone can participate, and it is part of the Adopt A Beach program. The event saves the government millions of dollars in cleanup costs and helps protect the delicate ocean ecosystem.
California Coastal Cleanup Day is an event organized by the California Coastal Commission and usually coincides with International Coastal Cleanup Day. On Coastal Cleanup Day, tens of thousands of volunteers pick up trash and debris from beaches across California to enhance the beauty natural state and the health of its marine environment. In addition to being a vital service to the environment, it’s also the largest garbage collection, according to the Guinness Book of World Records in 1993. Anyone can volunteer to lead or join a cleanup crew on Coastal Cleanup Day.
The third Saturday in September is always set aside for Coastal Cleanup Day, which runs from 9am to noon. 700 specific sites across California are designated, and individuals can register with the Coastal Commission to lead a cleanup crew to a site or to be part of a team. The Coastal Commission provides bags, gloves and tools to more than 50,000 volunteers each year, picking up 10 million pounds of debris in the first 22 years of the program, which began in 1985. Volunteers roam the beaches picking up trash, which is later analyzed by the Commission coast in the interest of keeping a record of which types of waste are found at which specific points.
Many volunteers join Coastal Cleanup Day because litter makes beaches ugly and dangerous. People can be injured by broken glass and wires, or suffer property damage from wire snagging their motors or glass and metal debris tearing fishing nets. For these reasons alone, Coastal Cleanup Day is a major event and saves the government millions of dollars in cleanup costs. However, it is also vital for the marine environment, as litter harms the ocean’s delicate ecosystem.
Ocean animals can get entangled in trash or suffocate on the things they’ve swallowed. A large amount of trash also carries pollution and toxins that damage the ocean. Because the ocean is so large and imperfectly understood, the true impact of garbage may not even be known. Coastal Cleanup Day is also part of a larger program to educate people about waste and the safe disposal of hazardous substances, because a large amount of waste ends up in the ocean, even if it doesn’t wash up on the beach.
Volunteers for Coastal Cleanup Day can be of all ages and skill levels. The program is part of the Adopt A Beach program, another Coastal Commission initiative, and many Adopt a Beach participants clean up their beaches on California Coastal Cleanup Day. Teachers can bring classes of students to pick up trash and learn about the marine environment, and some workplaces form teams of people to go out, clean up the environment and have an interesting day outside the office. People can also participate individually, by registering to join a group or by turning up at a drop-off point – information on all the ways to participate can be found on the Coastal Commission website. For people outside of California, information about International Coastal Cleanup Day can be found on the Ocean Conservancy website.
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