Three Year Beach Clean Up Comparison Numbers in San Diego

I finally started to clean up my beach trash photos and decided to compare same day last year 2019 to same day this year 2020. Wanted to see what it looked like and it looks the same if not worse. When you compare the numbers, the amount of trash on the beach has gotten worse.

Of course there are a few things to consider: Weather especially storms, the amount of days I went out to beach clean, the tides (higher tides bring more plastic) even the time of day. When one starts to beach clean when it’s dark, one misses all the little pieces of plastic film, bottle caps and cigarette butts. During the day it can be back-breaking.

Beach clean up counts by the numbers:

Feb 2018

Feb. 2019 Beach Clean Up Results:

Today and the month is not over 8479 pieces of trash. To be fair, the count is higher as have been going out with a couple of friends during the day in areas which are rarely if ever cleaned up.

But sadly, with all the press about plastic pollution, plastic in the ocean, one would think the numbers would be getting better, there would be less trash, less plastic.