O.C. Coastkeeper sweeps through H.B. for post-holiday cleanup
About 195 pounds of trash were cleaned up from Huntington State Beach this weekend when volunteers headed to the shore to keep garbage accumulated over the holiday weekend from getting swept into the ocean.
Orange County Coastkeeper held a post-Fourth of July cleanup on Saturday morning. Officials said in a news release that the holiday has made July 5 the “dirtiest beach day of the year” in environmental communities. Spokesman Matt Sylvester said much of the trash that ends up on beaches tends to be from inland sources.
Garbage appears from storm drains, but on holiday weekends — particularly summer events such as Memorial Day and Independence Day — more trash tends to appear directly on beaches due to holiday gatherings.
Sylvester said the majority of trash collected Saturday by 209 volunteers included bottle caps, food wrappers and cigarette butts, but volunteers also found a car fender, which he joked was very unlikely to have been left there by Fourth of July beachgoers.
“It’s pretty easy,” Sylvester said of the group’s educational mission. “Leave no trace. That’s the shortest words I could use for that. Leave no trace, and then pack it in, pack it out. It doesn’t take much extra time to give a quick 360 of where you’ve been hanging out all day. A Lay’s chips bag, a bottle cap — it’s really not asking too much to do that extra step, especially on our beaches. We’ve already picked up over 8,500 pounds in 2023 alone, and last year, our grand total for the whole year of 2022 — roughly 11,000 pounds.”
He noted that Huntington State Beach is home to at least two federally protected shorebirds, the Western snow plover and the California least tern.
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