The third Saturday in September is coming up, which means it is time to take out the trash that is currently littered along California’s coastlines. It is the 32nd annual Coastal Cleanup Day.

Coastal Cleanup Day was founded in 1985 by the California Coastal Commission to pick up the plastic debris that was flowing into the ocean and entangling wildlife as well as releasing pathogens that impacted water supply. Nearly 2,500 people participated in the first year, and by 1993 was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for having the “largest garbage collection” with 50, 405 volunteers. Solano County joined the efforts in 1996 with 418 volunteers picking up 19,300 pounds of trash. The size of the event has bloomed to the point where 2,452 volunteers picked up more than 29,000 pounds of trash last year.

Sue Frost, the coastal cleanup coordinator for Benicia, said that the city had 902 volunteers in 2014, and 4,000 pounds of trash and recycling were picked up in 2015.

“Our pounds of trash seem to be going down, but that’s not a bad thing necessarily,” she said.

The cleanup will take place again from 9 a.m. to noon, Saturday, Sept. 17 at various sites throughout Solano County. Sites in Benicia include First Street, West 3rd Street, West 6th Street, West 9th Street, West 12th Street, two locations at Benicia State Recreation Area and at Benicia High School. Volunteers are asked to bring buckets or reusable bags to collect trash, which they can dispose of in dumpsters or roll-away bins and bring the buckets or bags home. They are also asked to bring reusable gloves from home— although disposable plastic gloves will be provided— and reusable water bottles; and walk, bike or take public transportation or carpools to their site.

One area of interest will be seeing what items are people are throwing out. Volunteers can expect to see the usual pollution items— beer bottles, fast food cups, cigarettes, etc.—, but in the past, Frost has seen discarded DVD players, guns and even a whole ATM off Lake Herman Road. She said that any bit of litter is dangerous to California’s coasts.

“Even though we’re doing some inland sites, the trash gets pushed out through our storm drains into the oceans,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where the trash is. Eventually it all flows into the sea.”

After the cleanup is done, volunteers can enjoy a barbecue picnic lunch at 9th Street Park, provided by Benicia Lion’s Club. As with last year, all participants will also receive a gift card for a free taco at fast casual Mexican-inspired restaurant Rubio’s Coastal Grill, which has locations in Vallejo and Fairfield, among other places.

New this year is an application called Clean Swell, which records every item of trash that is collected and sends the data to Ocean Conservatory’s global ocean trash database.

“The data collection is important because it sets policies like (plastic) bag bans and styrofoam bans,” Frost said. “I think they’ll be amazed at how much food, trash and plastic bags are out there in our environment.”

Prospective volunteers can learn more information, including release forms and meetup sites, at recycle.SolanoCounty.com or SolanoRCD.org. For more information, email Marianne Butler, Solano Resource Conservation District’s environmental education director, at marianne.butler@solanorcd.org.

Sharing is caring!