Tens of thousands volunteer to clean coast
OAKLAND >> Eight-year-old Jackson Schindler had a simple, yet profound reason for joining tens of thousands of volunteers in picking up garbage along California’s beaches, creeks, parks and roads Saturday.
“I really like saving the world,” Jackson said matter-of-factly as he dropped bits of trash into his green plastic beach bucket.
Jackson and his mother, Julie Schindler, of Oakland, were among nearly 100 people spending their sunny Saturday picking plastic wrappers, drinking straws and other debris out of the tangles of kelp and driftwood that line Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland.
Behind them stretched a panoramic view of the San Francisco skyline and the Bay Bridge on one side, across a glittering expanse of water, and the Port of Oakland’s towering stacks of multicolored shipping containers on the other.
While not everyone harbored ambitions as grand as Jackson’s, the trash collectors who turned out from Del Norte to San Diego County for the California Coastal Commission’s 34th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day all shared one goal: to leave the land pristine. Last year, 66,535 people collected 839,632 pounds of debris (including 42,938 pounds of recyclables) in 55 of the state’s 58 counties.
Oakland hosted cleanup events at more than 60 locations Saturday, including on the shoreline, along creeks, in parks and on city streets. Urban trash pickups are an essential part of “coastal cleanup,” because they help prevent debris from washing down storm drains and ending up in the Bay, said Jennifer Stern, environmental stewardship analyst with the Oakland Public Works Department.
There also were dozens of sites in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, as well as in San Francisco.
“You can really see the impact of what you’re doing,” said 15-year-old Ryan Okada, who was collecting trash at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park with his Piedmont-based Boy Scout troop. “When you come out here, it’s just completely covered in trash, and when you leave you can feel a lot better.”
There also was a birder on hand Saturday to teach volunteers about the local shorebirds. Volunteer naturalist Hilary Powers, 74, had her spotting scope trained on groups of sandpipers, plovers and egrets.
For her, those birds are the main reason to clean the beach. Birds, especially small birds, have fast metabolisms and need to consume large amounts of nutrients every day, said Powers, who works with the Golden Gate Audubon Society and leads monthly bird walks around Lake Merritt.
“If they fill up too much on cigarette butts and Styrofoam beads, then they have no room for the food that they need,” Powers said. “So they can be full, and starving.”
Volunteers found some interesting tidbits among the refuse they collected at Middle Harbor on Saturday, including a sneaker, a boat seat and a bike lock.
Several years ago, volunteers there found a message in a bottle washed up on shore. It was a note addressed to a grandmother, from a child, that said, “I love you” and “miss you very much,” and declared “I am 7 now,” with pictures
of a heart, flowers and stick-figure people.
But it was 15-year-old Nate Casey of Piedmont who made perhaps the most important find of the day Saturday — a set of car keys dropped by another volunteer, 23-yearold Kristin Chaney of Burlingame, who had been
searching everywhere for them.
The trash collected also tells a story that can help shape local environmental regulations. Since California banned plastic grocery bags in 2014, the number of plastic bags picked up during Coastal Cleanup Day has fallen by 77 percent. On Saturday, volunteers reported finding large numbers of plastic drinking straws, which San Francisco voted to ban in July, and many local businesses are trying to eliminate their use.
Site organizer Beth Teper, a naturalist at Stepping Out Stepping In, which helps teach Oakland children about the environment, was pleased with the turnout at Middle Harbor. She estimated it was up from last year’s count of 75 people.
“This event helps people have a wonderful, fun day together, but also educates about trash that ends up in the water,” she said. “It can be very eye-opening to see just how much of our everyday objects end up on our shores.”
Chaney was among those who had her eyes opened Saturday.
“It’s overwhelmingly disturbing,” she said. “I was shocked at how much washed up.”