San Diego Beach Clean April 28, 2020 vs. April 28, 2019

What differences in beach trash after having humans on the beach for the first time in 6 weeks. New beach rules are: No sunbathing, no gatherings. Walking, running, surfing, paddle-boarding only. The day of the illegal fires, drinking parties, getting naked parties, beach toys, boogie boards should be over. But again, humans demonstrated the same carelessness and disrespect for our beaches. Found: 1 Jacket, 1 Bathing suit, 1 shoe,  4 ‘new’ beverage cans, 1 ‘new’ water bottle and a thermos. We are getting back to ‘normal’ after 24 hours.

But hundreds of small plastic bits (over 600 pieces) are washed ashore every 10 feet in one mile of beach. The tide was going out on Tuesday morning and I knew if I beach cleaned again 4 hours later, would pick up the same amount if not more of small plastic food wrappers, clear plastic film, plastic cups, plastic lid, plastic bottle caps and Styrofoam bits.

New bottles and a thermos.

Thermos

Find of the day was the brace which was embedded in the seaweed

like new brace in the tide line

As you can see the same week in April of 2018 1300 items were picked up. Using a different tracker at the time, ergo there was not as many beach trash categories.

April 24-31, 2018

The week will continue on. I would say that only 01% of the hundreds of people yesterday on the beach wore masks. The boardwalk was closed yet people disregarded and continued to ride bikes, walk and run on the boardwalk. In fact one woman was filmed talking down all the closed barricades. Another rumor was that the police gave up and went home. Whether they did or not, I don’t know.

The dog parks were to remain closed, yet across the channel a dog park called Dog Beach, there were about 100 people there with dogs.

I did see one Police ask a person to get up.