Horray For Coastal Cleanup Day!

I ended up falling asleep at 4:00 am and woke up at 6:00 am to get ready for this day. I had my waiver on hand; put on lots of sunscreen; and got my plastic garbage bags, my gloves, and water bottles in my bag. I have always heard of people volunteering to clean up the highway, but rarely have I heard about the day of cleaning up the beach. Of course you hear and see ads prompting to throw away and cut up rubber bands and those six pack plastic rings to help keep our waters clean and animals safe, but that isn't enough (See the new Solution here and watch the video: https://www.craftbeer.com/brewers_banter/saltwater-brewery-creates-edible-six-pack-rings).

Poor seagull whose life expectancy will decline because of the ingestion of plastic. 

Ever since I was little I would always want to go to the beach and help out, and an ultimate dream of mine (which I will one day do) is to watch sea turtles hatch and crawl to the sea. For a while, I wanted to become a Marine Biologist. I had and still do have an admiration for the marine life, and so when my friend told me about this opportunity I knew I would not turn away from this annual event. I carpooled with three other good friends, some of which I met over the summer during one of my classes. We all have never done cleanup day, and so we did not know what to expect. When we got to Oceano there was the volunteer check in. After turning in our waivers and getting our bucket, we went off as a group walking along the coast/shoreline to pick up as much trash as we could. I loved doing this. The only part I disliked was all the sand getting in my shoes and me having to stop to clear all the sand out and eventually I said, "Okay they recommended wearing closed toed shoes, but I am at the beach" so I took off my shoes and did majority of the cleanup without wearing shoes. I was a kid who thought of this as a treasure hunt, and you can hear all of us saying "oooh what is this" or "look at what I found." I was so in the flow that I did not even realize how far we have walked, and did not even feel the pain in my legs. It was until the group started complaining about their feet and legs hurting and wanting to turn back that made me realize that they were giving out. Me, I just wanted to keep going. However, about 10 yards away from the tent, when heading back, did I feel the pain in my ankles and calves. We walked a total of about 2 miles.

We had a data keeper who tallied what types of trash we collected. Items ranged from bottle caps to soda cans to plastic bags to car parts and even a condom wrapper. Yup, you heard me right. Condom wrapper. When we read that their was a possibility to mark condom as something found we were like no way, but there we were. The ones to mark condom found, and it was me who found it and picked it up. I wish I hadn't read the wrapper. Soooooo gross. We collected seventy-five cigarette butts, and I was disgusted to see this alarming number. I do not like the smell of cigarettes and dislike seeing people smoke, and to know that our beaches are being littered with them saddened me as I knew all those chemicals and toxins from these cigarettes are traveling to our waters and polluting them.

The biggest find I probably found was somebody's medical papers and course work. I realized that people go to the beach to have bonfires with the intent of erasing memories they do not wish to keep by burning things, and I happened to stumble upon this mass of papers. I called the group over thinking it was love letters of some sort seeing that some index cards were still left behind from the fire. I read 'bleeding stopped' and was fearful of what I would find, and as my friends were coming towards me they found half of a medical paper, and so there was a correlation. As we were picking up these burnt index cards I felt something and pulled out this stack of papers. They were still in perfect condition and not even scorched. We were at this hole digging for about two/three minutes and collected all the papers distributing them into everyone's bucket so that nobody's bucket became too heavy. The smell was horrid, and we all suggested this person certainly did not like the class whatsoever. In the end, we collectively gathered 19 pounds of trash, with me having found the most with 9 pounds (which might explain why my shoulders hurt). Then again, it was the papers that weighed the most. I can say this was a great start to my morning, and I felt great doing something good for the environment with an awesome group of people.