A Review Of Summer 2018 Beach Trash

As the summer closes, I thought I would give an overview of the beach trash at South Mission Beach oceanfront only. I am also sending to the San Diego Police Department and the San Diego City Council as the lack of law enforcement is worrisome. Then to top it off, at the end of the summer, they put up these ridiculous signs on the trash cans. Another waste of taxpayer money.. as it means nothing!

Known as San Diego’s dirtiest beach, Belmont Park is active all night long. It is not unusual to see packs of young adults partying on the beach and the picnic area. They along with homeless encampments and people sleeping it off.. makes a beach difficult to clean and keep clean. The beach cleaners have to wend their way around them and other ploggers don’t go near them. This is where the majority of the trash is and to make matters worse, the parking lot is not closed at night. Consequently, young adults are partying, riding scooters, having fires and doing what young adults do.. except these young adults along with visitors leave lots of trash….

On another note, it makes no difference if there is a police presence. After the Memorial Day weekend, July 4th and Labor Day weekend the large cardboard bins that are put out are filled with both liquor and glass, along with illegal fires and the evidence of drinking on the beach.

14 Laws per day minimum broken just in South Mission Beach oceanfront. They are as follows: 1.) Dogs off leash 2.) Dogs walked at wrong time 3.) Illegal dumping 4.) Littering 5.) Illegal fires 6.) Fires going at wrong times 7.) Drinking on beach 8.) Glass on beach, 9.) Smoking on beach 10.) Riding scooters without helmets 11.) Vandalism (dockless bikes, graffitti) 12.) Speeding on boardwalk 13.) Overnight camping on beach. 14.) Drugs on beach. If you think about it $1,000’s of dollars of revenue could be generated just from giving tickets out.

June 12 to August 31 2018 

• 2 Homeless encampments per day on the average in South Mission Beach oceanfront.
• 3 People-persons per night that sleep in their cars. This looks like their home.
• 10 people per night (average) sleeping on the beach in South Mission Beach alone.
• 50% of the Fire Pits (2) at Belmont Park are filled with over-night sleepers or campers.
• 75% of all Fire Pits at Belmont Park South Mission Beach Jetty and Lifeguard Station #10 have evidence of drinking liquor. Broken glass beer bottles, burned aluminum cans and lots of trash.
• 6 Illegal Fires average per day-night on the beach in South Mission Beach. That does not include the 4 illegal fires on the South Mission Beach Jetty. As one fire as usually still lit, I pile trash around it, so people will not go by and step on the hot coals.
  

• 90% of illegal fires are surrounded by liquor bottles and trash.
• 80% of the 100+ trashcans contain liquor products or packaging, that included glass bottles. That does include all the oceanfront rentals that use the city beach trashcans for their household waste. But even if you pull those cans out. it would come out the same.
• 6 Glass bottles average in each trashcan in South Mission Beach for a total of 600+ glass bottles. Some of them are from the oceanfront beach rentals. The majority of glass is coming off the beach.
• 3 Broken glass on the beach, boardwalk and jetty beach daily. This does not include Belmont Park parking lot. The problem is the Park and Rec people pick up glass first and bypass all the other trash. Safety first and much of the broken glass is covered up by cars by the time they get around to the parking lot.
  

• 2 Unbroken Marijuana containers picked up daily on the beach only. (Average)
• 3 Dirty Diapers per day on the Belmont Park beach only. That does not include the restrooms and parking lots of which there is most likely at least 10.
  

• 2  ‘Fecal’ Leavings average which look to be like from dogs on the beach daily.
• 6 Disposable Boogie boards per day average left on the beach at Belmont Park only. That does not include, boogie boards in parking lots, in the trashcan, at the restrooms and the Belmont Park parking lot and the Jetty.
  

• 40 beach chairs left on the beach. (What I picked up) It does not count the numerous canopies, chairs left at picnic areas and parking lots.
  

• 30 Textiles per day average picked up on the beach. This includes underwear, socks, pants, shorts, bathing suits, towels, t-shirts, sweatshirts, comforters, sheets, hats, blouses, skirts, beach mats, blankets and other assorted textiles. This does not include all the textiles left in trashcans and at the restrooms and parking lots.
• 10 shoes picked up on the beach average per day.
  

In 20 days of tracking data: (June 12-August 31 2018) This data is not as accurate, as most of the glass is put in trash cans I left an estimated 300 recyclables were left in piles on the beach. I gave away over 300 assorted bottles and glass. After July 1, did not pick up any glass out of trash cans and left most in trashcans, so the glass bottles number are much higher. Glass is very heavy and takes up a lot of room. When you look at these numbers and evaluate the number of canners trawling for recyclables, who do not pick up glass, I can only imagine how many recyclables are actually left and would at least triple these numbers.

• 10,519 bottles, cans and glass were picked up in 20 days of tracking. Some of these were from the trashcans on the beach. The majority of them came from the beach, as evidenced by the amount of sand. This is a low number as there are an average of 4 canners in the am picking up recyclables out of the trash cans.
• 46.1% or 4928 were plastic bottles of water or sodas.
• .5% or 54 Plastic Liquor bottles (This number is higher as it does not count the numbers in trash cans)
• 7.9% or 850 Glass Liquor Bottles. (This does not count the glass liquor in trash cans)
• 1.3% or 137 Glass Soda Bottles (This does not count the glass beverages in trash cans)
• 25.1% or 2636 Aluminum Liquor Bottles
• 15.6% or 1640 Aluminum Soda Bottles
• 33.5% is Liquor. 

Miscellaneous (June 12- August 31 2018)

• 4 Pipes picked up.
• 1 Needle picked up.
• 8 Vaping apparatus picked up on the beach.
• 4 Cases of unopened Beers picked up total.
• 2 Cases of unopened Soda picked up total.
• 4 Marijuana containers with marijuana
• 40 empty Marijuana containers picked up
• 20 BBQ’s were left on the beach.
• 5 Igloo coolers
• 10 Disposable Styrofoam Coolers picked off the beach.
• 8 Fins found on the beach.
• 1 Dive Mask (retail $75.00)
• 30 Swim goggles
• 4 Skimboards found on the beach.
• 2 Disposable Surfboards found at the South Mission beach jetty.
• 9 Lifevest
• 7 Barbies
• 42 Hats picked up
• 4 Cell phones picked up

• 54 Sunglasses including 2 RayBans, 1 Gucci and 1 Coach. The rest are cheap and unusable.
• 1 pair of new UGG womans sandals (retail $90.00)

Hundreds of other trash include, food wrappers, cups, plates, eating utensils, electronics, broken toys, reusable bottles, (Plastic) plastic bags, furniture (chairs, high chair, office chair, tables) Tools (shovels, trowels, paint roller, screwdriver) strollers, RaZor, sunscreen, cosmetics, lip balms, lighter fluid, wood, tents, glue, harmonica, tampax, condoms, latex gloves, fishing gear, balloons, plastic straws, plastic bottle caps, plastic lids, cigarette butts and other packaging. They all have one thing in common.. plastic.

Trending Trash

• The number 1 soda was LaCroix, then followed by Arizona Tea, Squirt, Coke and 7-UP. Those were usually found with Jim Beam, Bacardi and other hard liquors
• The number 1 Beer is Modelo, followed by Coors and Budweiser.
• The number 1 Glass liquor was Smiroff’s.
• The number 1 Glass Beverage was Mikes
• The number brand of sandals picked up was Rainbow, then Cobain, Havaiana’s and FloJo’s.
• The number one hotel towel picked up is Marriott and the next is Hilton or the blue and white striped towels. At any one time I have 100 white hotel towels in inventory.

In evaluating the totals of beach trash: the majority is plastic or plastic based.

• 75 % of all beach trash can be donated or recycled.
• 14% of all beach trash would not be there if laws were enforced.
• 34% would not be at the beach there were bans on styrofoam, straws and balloons 

The most trash picked up is styrofoam pieces from broken boogie boards and styrofoam dishes. Thousands of these nurdles are on the tide line and almost impossible to pick up. After that is food wrappers and pieces of food wrappers.

Now we start in September and the trash has not abated. Pretty soon the fire pits and life guard stations will be taken down. When that happens.. the beach screeners will not be on the beach cleaning as much. They are down at least 10 people from a few years ago, 2 out of 3 garbage trucks are broken, the one person who used to pick up the big stuff on the beach on the weekends (no screeners on weekends) was pulled off that duty and is back to garbage trucks. All that means is more trash washing out to the ocean and everybody pays.

Who trashes? Is it homeless, residents or visitors? If I had to make an educated guess, it’s visitors. Homeless do not buy Heinken beer, boogie boards and beach toys. Residents (meaning people that live in Mission Beach) already have most of the above. Most of the beach front is rentals and they do leave a lot of trash on the beach as well as misuse the city trash cans.

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Resources

California Towns Spend $428 Million a Year Cleaning Up Polluted Beaches; California communities are spending $428 million dollars a year to keep plastic and other trash off the streets and keep it from polluting waterways and beaches, an environmental group said in a new report. os Angeles topped the spending list with more than $36 million in annual costs, followed by San Diego with about $14 million and Long Beach at around $13 million. (Source)

The Cost of Keeping Beaches Clean; For a committee of co-permittees including the city of San Diego, San Diego County, and Orange County, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, and U.S. EPA Region 9, ECONorthwest conducted one of the most comprehensive benefit-cost analyses and financial analyses associated with water quality investment to-date. It involved analysis of alternatives for reducing bacteria and other human source pathogens in waters across the two counties, particularly at beaches. Mark Buckley was lead economist, including direction and motivation of numerous other supporting disciplinary analyses including engineering, biology, and epidemiology. The project was motivated by water quality compliance costs of potentially over $2 billion to local ratepayers (Eco Northwest)