Ocean Knows No Refuge From Refuse : Environment: Divers working near Redondo Pier dredge up a small mountain of trash in about an hour.

If you truly can learn the most about a society from what it throws away, the refuse recovered by divers Sunday near the Redondo Beach Pier paints Southern Californians as a bunch of beer-guzzling, free-spending, love-struck litterbugs.

In about an hour, the 70 to 100 divers recovered such ragpickers’ gems as $30 in cash, men’s underwear, driver’s licenses, golf balls and a love letter from a girl named Karla. The treasures were placed in mesh sacks along with tangled fishing line, beer cans and bottles.

The American Oceans Campaign, an ecological advocacy group based in Santa Monica, and a Los Angeles scuba-diving school said they co-sponsored the cleanup to point out the desecration of the sea floor.

“Here you have a clean beach, and the ocean looks clean,” said David Moss, owner of the Pacific School of Diving, which co-sponsored the event. “And in an hour out come divers with 500 pounds of trash. It’s the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ kind of thing.”

Organizers said they chose the underwater stretch just south of the pier because it is a natural resting place for debris tossed by boaters, fishermen and beach-goers. Much of the junk had migrated to a trench about 100 yards from the beach and was so plentiful in some places that divers said it would have taken hours to gather it all.

The garbage was bundled for donation to the Los Angeles Children’s Museum, which plans to fashion it into a sculpture for display in Redondo Beach.

“I don’t think they should make a sculpture out of this,” said diver Kelly Ferdman, a Los Angeles electronics engineer, as he gingerly extracted a soggy jockstrap from his motley collection.

Ferdman was not the only participant reacting with revulsion to what he found. One diver said he found condoms. Another retrieved the kind of latex glove commonly used in doctors’ offices.

All that glittered was not aluminum, however. Blaise Eitner, a UCLA graduate student, found four faded $1 bills. “I kept looking around saying, ‘Where are the $20s?’ ”

Eitner should have teamed with MacRae Wylde, the Los Angeles sculptor who plans to fashion the waterlogged garbage into art. Wylde said he found a $20 bill.

Amid the riches, the divers reported a remarkable abundance of sea life. Wylde said he encountered two huge crabs and swam near a school of small barracuda. But many creatures appeared to have been adversely affected by the litter. Some starfish were missing arms.

Diver Robert MacClellan, an electrician from Granada Hills, said he saw a sheep crab munching on a food wrapper. He said he poked a yard-long halibut that normally would have darted away, leading him to believe it is ailing.

“It’s disgusting,” MacClellan said. “It’s getting worse and worse.”