The Coast Is Clear, for a Day : 4,538 Volunteers Take Away 22 Tons of Trash

When Peggy Blanchard goes kayaking in Newport Back Bay, she has noticed with distress that trash often floats along the rim of that estuary at high tide, sinking into the mud as the tide retreats.

On Saturday, she was on her knees beside the bay, pushing back the pickle weed and pulling out those Styrofoam cups and bottle caps that have sullied one of her favorite haunts.

“I’ll never buy Styrofoam again,” vowed the 50-year-old Long Beach woman, who was among the 4,538 volunteers taking part in the 10th annual Coastal Cleanup Day in Orange County. By day’s end, they had cleared 45,000 pounds of trash, more than 22 tons, and almost 6,000 pounds of recyclable plastics, aluminum and glass from the county’s beaches and estuaries, as well as the ocean floor.

The countywide volunteer force was larger than last year’s, when 3,969 people collected 43,076 pounds of trash and 4,795 pounds of recyclable material.

Among the most intriguing discoveries were a sofa and a bed found hidden in the brush along the shoulders of Newport Back Bay, auto parts dug out of the sand along the surf line at Huntington State Beach and the soggy wallet of a Laguna Beach maintenance worker, still containing identification and credit cards, that was plucked from the ocean bottom by a scuba diver scavenging off Laguna’s Main Beach.

“That is wild,” said Kurt Bladergroen, when he learned his wallet had been discovered. He said he lost it eight or nine months ago when he was walking his dog on the beach.

But the throngs of trash hunters also found plenty of more mundane plastic food wrappings, cigarette butts, straws, cans and buckets of discarded oil and tar--all of which create an eyesore and can threaten the lives of fish, birds and other wildlife.

“The clear plastic looks a lot like jellyfish to some sea animals, so you sometimes find turtles and some fish and sea birds dead with plastic clogging their stomachs,” said Al Hornsby, a member of the Professional Assn. of Diving Instructors. A group from that organization spent Saturday morning combing the ocean depths along the Laguna Beach shoreline.

The annual cleanup event, sponsored statewide by the California Coastal Commission, can only put a dent in the trash that pollutes the ocean and beaches. But its organizers say they hope it will teach children not to throw anything from boats or into drains and streams that flow to the ocean.

This year’s event was promoted by many organizations and businesses, including Southern California Edison Co. and Shell Oil, both of which sent employees to several cleanup sites. Other companies such as the McDonald’s restaurant chain provided refreshments.

Despite a power outage, BJ’s Pizza in San Juan Capistrano delivered 200 pizza slices to about 350 volunteers at Doheny State Beach, said Ed Neely, a member of the Doheny Longboard Surfing Assn., which managed the cleanup there.

Neely said some trash cullers decided to concentrate their efforts on San Juan Creek, which flows into the ocean at Doheny State Beach. “They brought out a couple of shopping carts, grimy oil cans, clothing and a lot of aluminum cans,” he said.

Volunteers labored at 21 seaside locations, with the largest turnout of 1,750 workers at Newport Back Bay.

Cheryl Thomas, 32, said she and her dog, Gracie, showed up because “we walk here every day, and so she has a vested interest. We just love the bay. It’s a beautiful area.”

The change in the bay and Orange County over the last decade is reflected in the records of the annual cleanup, said Jeff Blomstrom, 28, a volunteer with the state Department of Fish and Game.

“Ten years ago, there were orchards in the area and they found a lot of oranges, and now it is tennis balls,” he said.

Among the volunteers were high school students expecting to get credit for classes or to accumulate “community service hours” that would look good on the transcripts they send to college admissions offices. Some said the experience was an eye-opener.

“It is pretty amazing so much trash gets washed up here,” said Wes Hansen, a junior at University High School in Irvine.

George Snider, 65, a member of the Orange County Park Ranger Reserves, who was one of the many people helping to coordinate the Back Bay volunteers, said some of the younger trash collectors were especially proud of their finds.

“One little boy claimed he found a dinosaur bone, but it looked more like a chicken bone to me,” Snider said.