Volunteers Clear Tons of Trash From State’s Beaches

Volunteers showed up at their local beaches from the borders of Mexico to Oregon on Saturday morning wearing gloves, sturdy shoes and sun block to clean up the California coast.

The annual cleanup, which began nine years ago to beautify beaches and protect marine mammals, fish and birds from dangerous debris, took place along more than 700 waterways, wetlands and shorelines, California Coastal Commission officials said.

“There’s a lot of trash that isn’t going to be there tomorrow. It’s a chance for volunteers to make a statement about how much we care for the coastline in California,” said state coordinator Jack Liebster.

About 5,000 Southern California volunteers found about 60,000 pounds of garbage. Their bounty included a dismantled Volkswagen Beetle, a dead boar off Catalina Island, four shopping carts and X-rated books, said Marilyn Kronmal, the Los Angeles County coordinator. In the county, about a quarter of all pollution entering Santa Monica Bay is urban runoff, including trash, motor oil, grease, heavy metals, detergent and pet wastes. The runoff is washed into storm drain channels and is carried into the bay untreated, officials said.

Orange County’s volunteer force was larger than last year’s, when 3,969 people collected 43,076 pounds of trash and 4,795 pounds of recyclable material.

Among the most intriguing discoveries were a sofa and a bed found hidden in the brush along the shoulders of Newport Back Bay, auto parts dug out of the sand along the surf line at Huntington State Beach and the soggy wallet of a Laguna Beach maintenance worker that was plucked from the ocean bottom by a scuba diver scavenging off Laguna’s Main Beach.

Among odd items picked up in Northern California were a white wedding dress, live ammunition, an uncashed check written in 1986 for $1,852.17, a full bottle of Prozac, a gun and a microwave, Liebster said.