Beaches get a little cleanup help from some friends

Dave Brooks

About 400 volunteers descended on Surf City’s 2.5 miles of city

beaches Saturday to lend a hand with statewide cleanup efforts.

“The concept is for this to be an environmental awareness day,”

Tim Turner, community services crew leader, said of the city’s 20th

annual participation in Coastal Cleanup Day, a yearly effort

sponsored by the California Coastal Commission that encourages

residents to spend the morning picking up debris on the beach.

Besides giving the beaches a much-needed face lift, the event is

an opportunity for city officials to reevaluate their public

information campaigns. Each volunteer is asked to document the types

of trash collected, said the city’s environmental specialist Richard

Cavaliero.

“”We’re using that information to see where we can focus our

educational efforts,” he said. “If we’re finding a lot of fast food

debris, we can take that information and work with different

businesses to come up with solutions.”

Educational efforts have been paying off, said Cavaliero, who

noted that the pile of trash collected at the end of the day was much

smaller than years past. He also said that new filters on the city’s

storm drain system were part of the solution.

Still, many times, it’s the smallest bits of trash that cause the

problems.

“We’re asking residents to pick up the things that the equipment

can’t get,” Turner said, noting that cigarette butts often end up

floating around the shoreline and marine wildlife. A recent ban on

smoking on the beach could curb littering.

“The sheer volume alone is incredible,” Turner said. “We have 750

trash cans along the beach and on a busy day, they will all fill up.”

Many of Saturday’s volunteers said the cleanup was a good

opportunity to teach their children about environmental stewardship.

“I think it was a good experience for kids to understand what

needs to be done to keep beaches in the good condition they’re in,”

said parent Karen Lee of Huntington Beach, who brought her children

to participate in the event.

Volunteer Heidi Wassef of Huntington Beach said “it was very

refreshing to see a lot of people help to clean up. This is a nice

lesson in combining forces and team effort.”

Lee said she liked the community spirit of the event.

“Being down here reminds me of how much I love living in

Huntington Beach,” she said. “Although we’re a big city, we still

have a community feel.”