EDITORIAL:Following the waste stream

There’s a lot of trash in Laguna Beach this summer.

City Manager Ken Frank reports that weekly trash collection by city workers has increased in volume by one-quarter from previous years, to as much as 35 tons a week.

In past years, the city has collected about 28 tons of trash a week.

Everyone seems to be noticing an influx of out-of-town visitors, so it’s not surprising that the amount of debris left behind at the end of the day has skyrocketed. The record heat wave has no doubt increased the numbers as inland-dwellers flee to cooler beach climes.

Here’s the lowdown on trash from Vic Hillstead, the city’s parks and building manager:

The city’s beach crew ? two full-time and five part-time employees ? collects trash from a total of 550 55-gallon receptacles on beaches and downtown streets. Only Main Beach gets treatment from the sand sifter ? three times a week during the summer ? because it is the only beach accessible enough for the equipment.

On the other city-operated beaches, landscaping contractors go out periodically to rake through the sand and bag up what they find by hand.

The trash collected is placed into dumpsters that hold 40 cubic yards of material. In previous years, four such dumpsters were filled a week; this summer, five of the big receptacles get filled up.

The annual cost: $100,000 for staff; $15,000 for trash bags; and $7,000 for dog poop bags. It costs $6,000 a month just to haul the stuff. That’s $194,000 a year to keep the beaches and downtown looking spiffy.Supplementing these municipal efforts are environmental groups who periodically organize volunteer beach cleanups. Chief among these is Clean Water Now!, which organizes the California Coastal Commission’s statewide cleanups.

The statewide beach cleanups were originally intended to collect trash from inaccessible coastal areas and outposts ? and timed to coincide with the beginning and end of the summer season ? but in the past 10 years or so, the cleanups have moved to urban areas, where they supplement the efforts of government agencies.

Many groups have leapt on the “beach cleanup” bandwagon, and we’ve seen cleanups in Laguna sponsored periodically by the Surfrider Foundation, Blue Water and even by Scientology and other assorted groups that want to do good works. More power to them.

Now that you know exactly what happens to that potato chip bag you have placed into the trash ? and the effort and money expended ? you know how important it is to get it in there in the first place.