Heal the Bay holds annual Coastal Cleanup

By India Pearman

Staff Writer

Heal the Bay held its annual Coastal Cleanup at over 50 locations, including Manhattan and Hermosa Beach, where approximately 10,000 volunteers gathered on Saturday from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Coastal Cleanup day is California’s largest annual event. Volunteers pick up trash and waste on LA county beaches. Another main goal of the event is to educate people enabling them to take action in their communities, Director of Programs at Heal the Bay Merideth McCarthy said.

“I think being able to connect people to their job in keeping our oceans healthy is really powerful,” McCarthy said. “I think that’s one of the biggest impacts of the day; that people can make a difference.”

Visit Heal the Bay’s website here.

There is no age requirement to participate in the clean up. There are beach wheel chairs available at 102 sites to make it accessible to everyone in the community. The only requirement is to register online and bring a waiver to the event.

“That’s the beauty of Coastal Cleanup Day, everyone can attend this event,” Public Education Manager of California Costal Commission Eben Schwartz said. “It doesn’t matter how old, young, what ever you might be, its open to everybody. It doesn’t require any training and it is a very simple activity.”

The California Coastal Commision organization has worked along more than 2000 miles of coastline and inland shoreline. The CCC coordinates with the local organizations to make this event possible. Heal the Bay has participated in the event for 26 years and has collected 1.8 million pounds of trash in the last eight years of doing their annual Coastal Cleanup Day.

“It’s a part of an international effort,” McCarthy said. “It’s in the guinness book of world records as the largest volunteer event on the kplanet. We move hundreds and hundreds of pounds of trash out of our creeks and beaches to make sure that it doesn’t end up in the ocean.”

Sign up for next year’s clean up here.

At the Manhattan Beach pier location 435 people attended, surpassing last year where 400 people participated. Overall, volunteers collected 80 lbs of trash and 35 lbs of recyclables in order to benefit the beaches and oceans of our community.

“Afterwards, when I see the numbers, I think wow!” Roundhouse Volunteer and Education Coordinator Britney Oleos said. “People in the community have come out just to clean the beaches and it just shows how much they care. And then when I look at the trash piles, I think, ‘We did something today and the whole world did it together.”

The Roudhouse Aquarium organized this event with provided materials from Heal the Bay. Five students involved in Key Club at Costa attended the event. The most common items of trash on the beaches were cigarrette buds, straws, and plastic in general.

“Manhattan Beach is generally a very clean beach,” junior at Mira Costa and volunteer Grace Lauson said. “I think that our community does a relatively good job of keeping the beaches clean and should continue to do so.”