Cleaning up every day

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

-- Herbert Spencer, English

philosopher (1820 - 1903)

Nearly 500 volunteers, a vast majority of them children, sprang

into action last week, collecting more than 3,000 pounds of trash

from Surf City’s beaches on California’s 19th annual Coastal Cleanup

Day last week.

Volunteers 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.

Kayakers removed 50 large bags of trash from the Bolsa Chica

Wetlands and reported that there’s a lot more out there.

Simultaneously, volunteers picked up debris all 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 generations 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 Day, 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, such as the Preservation Society of Huntington

Dog Beach and the Bolsa Chica Conservancy, hold regular beach and

wetland clean up 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.