CA coastal cleanup day prepares for 26th annual event

The California Coastal Commission is proud to announce the 26th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day – the state’s largest volunteer event.

The event will take place at more than 800 locations around the state from 9 a.m. to noon Sept. 25. The cleanup is the state’s largest single effort to remove the debris that has accumulated on our beaches and inland shorelines over the past year, bringing tens of thousands of volunteers out annually to protect the marine wildlife and habitat that can be badly damaged by marine debris.

As Coastal Cleanup Day enters its second quarter century as California’s most successful volunteer event, the Coastal Commission and its many partners around the state are seeking ways to improve upon the cleanup by reducing the amount of debris created by the cleanup itself.
The first step in this effort is the launching of a BYO, or Bring Your Own, campaign designed to encourage volunteers to help decrease the ecological footprint of the cleanup. Volunteers are being encouraged to turn out to their favorite cleanup location with their own bucket or reusable bag, gloves and reusable water bottle, so that they won’t have to use the disposable items that the Commission supplies.

“Coastal Cleanup Day has been incredibly successful at removing trash from our beaches and waterways, but in order to achieve this success, the Coastal Commission has had to provide hundreds of thousands of single-use, disposable items for our volunteers to use,” Eben Schwartz, statewide director of the event said. “It’s time for the cleanup to make every effort to become a zero waste event.”

The commission’s efforts to reduce the amount of trash created by the cleanup become even more important in light of the incredible growth the cleanup has enjoyed over the past three years. More than 80,000 volunteers participated in the 2009 Cleanup, an all-time record for participation and a 60 percent increase in volunteers since the 2007 event.

Those volunteers removed more than 1.3 million pounds of debris from California’s shorelines. Plastic debris makes up close to 80 percent, by item, of the debris removed and single-use disposable plastic goods account for almost all of that 80 percent. This year promises to topple records once again, as the commission has teamed with the Sierra Nevada Conservancy to expand the cleanup along rivers and throughout the watersheds of the Sierra Nevada region.

“In our inaugural event last year, the Great Sierra River Cleanup marshalled 3,500 volunteers to remove 130 tons of trash from Sierra rivers and streams, and we have expanded quite a bit this year” said SNC Executive Officer Jim Branham. “The Coastal Commission has done a great job of establishing the Cleanup in most areas of California; the Sierra Nevada Conservancy can bring a more regional focus and increased participation to the event in our area.

For those who don’t want to wait until September to start cleaning California’s beaches, the Coastal Commission also runs a year-round beach cleanup program called Adopt-A-Beach. When a group adopts a beach they commit to cleaning it three times per year (school groups are required to clean up only once per year). The program has been a success since its inception in 1984, but always needs helping hands. Schools, youth groups, community groups, churches, businesses and individuals contribute to this year-round effort.

For more information on last year’s cleanup or any of the new initiatives planned for 2010, please visit www.coastforyou.org. For a PDF of this year’s artwork and ad campaign, please visit the “Media Center” section of www.coastforyou.org.

San Francisco Weather Forecast, CA (94124)