San Diego Beach Clean Up: 3 Year Overview April 2018, 2019, 2020

April 2018: I had just moved back to beach and got my wagon together. Beach clean ups were to be a daily feel good, do good. Recorded 6010 pieces of beach trash in April of 2018. That was with losing data.

This was a typical day with towels, bottles and lighter fluid.

Lots of bottles on the beach. Not all the bottles were picked up. Sometimes if in the mood, decided to do a little canning to help out some of the canners in our alleys.

April 2019: A month in which I was gone for 13 days, which is most likely why only 1610 pieces of beach trash were recorded. At this point, a decision was made to try to salvage as much water from the water bottles to see if could keep the garden going. California was under water restrictions as the time. For fun, decided to see how much beer was collected, 12 unopened beer bottles, either in trash cans, fire pits or laying on the beach. All images are available on my Facebook page. What is not in here are toys. Somehow that got lost, in reviewing old data it looks like 245 Toys.

April 2020: Most of the month was spent cleaning up our streets and alleys. Was able to sneak out a few times to do a beach clean. We had lots of rain and therefore missed a few days. The below numbers are a deceptive. A friend and I did most of the trash walking together and the number reflect only mine. It easily could be doubled.

More interesting is that most of this litter could not be faulted to tourists. This is residents and construction litter. The majority of the Short Term Vacation rentals were gone. 854 Cigarette Butts and 1497 food wrappers could only be attributed to locals or workers.

The tide line was littered with tiny bits of plastic, clear plastic film, food wrappers and styrofoam bits. In fact 1497 pieces were attributed to mainly snack foods.

Gloves have always been found on the beach, but they are back in full force.

On one of the days I snuck out, did not take my wagon, just a single bucket. I had to be off the beach by 5:30 am, so I just piled out of the tide line to pick up later. That is ammo case.

A total of 5 masks were found in the month of April. This was the beginning of the mask and glove hazardous waste issues.

In retrospect, the amount of plastic litter was telling. Most of it was on the street, washing out via our storm drains. This is deliberate litter. Food wrappers don’t just jump out of trash cans.

I wonder how much beach trash I would have picked up if had been able to beach clean every morning in April?