Friday, September 19, 2014

Thousands to take to shores for Coastal Cleanup Day

 

Tens of thousands of volunteers around the state and on the Peninsula will descend upon local beaches, San Francisco Bay shorelines and inland waterways on Saturday morning to participate in the 30th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day.

Beginning at 9 a.m., participants will scour the areas until noon, removing debris and litter from 850 sites across California, 30 of which are in San Mateo County.

During last year's event, the volunteers removed about 750,000 pounds of trash from around the state, approximately 25,000 pounds of which came from San Mateo County sites.

San Mateo Countywide Water Pollution Prevention Program spokesman Matt Fabry said that while municipalities have reduced environmental impacts by enacting plastic bag and Styrofoam food container bans, as well as installing filters to catch trash in local waterways, the annual cleanup event is still crucial.

Plastic litter that is commonly retrieved during the cleanups does not biodegrade, but breaks down into small pellets that absorb toxins and are then eaten by marine wildlife, he noted. According to the California Department of Public Health, seafood caught in San Francisco Bay has been shown to contain such toxins, which include polychlorinated biphenyls.

Pacifica is one community that has earned a reputation for hosting some of the largest cleanups in the region in recent years, with last year's event drawing between 1,000 and 1,300 volunteers, according to San Mateo County Health System spokeswoman Robyn Thaw. The turnout at Ryder Park in San Mateo may rival those numbers, as that location saw about 1,000 voluznteers last year, Thaw noted.

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Submitted by Brendan Bartholomew

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