It takes more than one day

“The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.”

-- Herbert Spencer,

English philosopher

(1820-1903)

Hundreds of volunteers, a vast majority of them children, sprang

into action last week, collecting trash from Newport beaches during

California’s 19th annual Coastal Cleanup Day.

Volunteers, including about 350 at Crystal Cove, found a vast

array of objects strewn across the state’s greatest natural resource

-- the usual soda cans, beer bottles and cigarettes but also

televisions, lawn and living room furniture. Little pieces of

Styrofoam and cigarette butts were among the most bothersome bits.

Globs of tar hardening in the sand and scrub also contribute to the

trash littering the stunning shoreline.

Simultaneously, volunteers picked up debris up and down

California’s coast.

As people become educated about the environment, the importance of

such days becomes clear. Children now learn these lessons at an early

age and will be the first to tell someone not to litter and why.

“It’s really gross. People swim in this water,” said Lauren Kraft,

13, an eighth-grader at Corona del Mar High School who cleaned up at

Crystal Cove State Park as part of the statewide effort.

So while the future of our natural resources may be safe in the

next generation’s hands, we still have the present to worry about.

With days such as California Coastal Cleanup Day, which is part of

an International Coastal Cleanup, we are taking steps toward

preserving our natural environment. But while such days go a long

way, it is an effort that needs to be kept up daily.

Many local groups, including a half-dozen environmental and

government agencies along the coast, hold regular beach and wetland

cleanup days. This is yet another step in the right direction, but it

must become an everyday action to pick up litter and trash. It must

become a mind-set not to drop wrappers or cigarette butts on the

ground.

Let’s try to make Coastal Cleanup Day unnecessary.